Demon Gate
by aislyn98
Summary: Everyone thought that the end of the world would be brought on by some kind of plague or zombie apocalypse. Nobody thought it would be caused by a crack in a demon gate that was 1000s of years old. Demons flooded the earth and took over, killing everything in their path. Now, 50 years later, what is left of the human race struggle for survival.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The field is quiet. Not that that isn't the usual here. Even the animals know to be quiet, this far out. The only sound comes from the slight brushing of the tall grasses against each other as the wind blows. But when the comfortable summer breeze stops, it goes back to silence. Always silence. And it is deafening.

A flicker of red and silver flashes to the East end of the field near the tree line. A quick blur that most would have missed.

A small family of foxes, nestled in a den, rest peacefully until a screech pierces the silence. The mother startles and then races to the mouth of the den, recognizing the sound as one of her pups in pain. One of them must have snuck off while she was sleeping. Shooting a look over her shoulder at the remaining pups that says, don't move, she races out in the direction of the screech.

Half a mile away, a woman pauses her bathing in a stream. A screech like that can only mean one thing, and that noise was much too close for comfort. Scrambling out of the water as silently as someone in a panic can, she pulls on her clothes and rushes back to where she stashed her belongings. Her bow lay by her pack and quiver under a nearby bush, everything already set to go as she hadn't planned on too long of a stay. As she reaches her bow, another screech sounds, this one slightly deeper and drawn out. And closer.

She slings her pack and quiver over her shoulder, grabbing an arrow and readying her bow in case she needs it. She hopes she doesn't.

Pacing forward slowly, she keeps her eyes peeled for anything out of place. Heart pounding from the adrenalin, she tries to calm herself so that she can focus on her surroundings.

A snap of a twig to her right makes her pause and turn slowly. Luckily there is a tree blocking her from view in that direction, so she slinks closer to it to give herself more cover. She doesn't run, she's seen what happens when you run, and she won't make that mistake.

Peaking her head around slightly to see what she is dealing with, she watches as a small fox limps into view. After a few stumbles, it collapses on its side in front of the tree she is hiding behind. It's very young from the looks of it. She bites at her bottom lip a few times in indecision, weighing the pros and cons of helping the injured pup.

A wail sounds not 50 feet away, and she makes up her mind. She can't just leave it here to die. Putting her arm through the bow, so it rests on her shoulder, she quickly ducks down and pulls the pup into her arms. She knows her clothes will be covered in blood, an extreme inconvenience in this region, but she takes the risk to save the small creature.

The young woman returns to her spot behind the tree and pulls out bandages from her pack. Assessing the damage quickly, knowing she can give him better care later, she swiftly wraps the worst of his wounds. Using the rest of the bandages she brought with her, she makes a crude rendition of a baby sling under her jacket to keep him safe and warm against her body. It also keeps her arms free so that she can use her bow if needed.

The sound of another twig snapping makes her freeze. She knows if it's what she thinks it is, she's in deep shit. Her best bet would have been to just leave the damn fox and run for it when she had the chance, but she couldn't bring herself to abandon a baby. Call it motherly instincts or whatever, but she just had a feeling she needed to save him. Of course, if she gets caught, then both of them will die, and the whole thing would be in vain.

She quickly zips up her jacket, patting the fox pup's head gently when he begins to stir and readies her bow again.

"Where'd that little runt run off to, brother?" A gruff, nasally voice asks.

"He's here somewhere. I can still smell his blood." The second voice sounds younger, more of an arrogant tone to it. The young woman curses to herself, lowly. Two demons. Just her luck.

Taking in her surroundings, she tries to decide quickly what the best course of action is. An explosion and a blinding flash of light to her left causes her to jump and let out a soft noise of surprise.

"You hear that, brother Hiten?" The first demon asks.

"Yes, Monten. It sounds like we have new prey. And this one is a girl." The arrogant one, Hiten, purrs in a voice that causes chills to run up and down her spine and goosebumps to spread across her body.

These demons weren't on the hunt for food. A bad situation in itself, but the one she is currently in is much worse. The only thing worse than a hungry demon was a bored demon. Those ones were ruthless and only hunted for the pleasure of the kill. And the fact that these ones could talk, let alone do whatever it was that caused the explosion, meant she had two powerful and ruthless demons hunting her now.

"It sounded like it came from over…" Hiten pauses for a moment, scanning the area around him. "There!" He shouts.

The air surrounding her crackles with electricity, and she breaks into a sprint just as the lightning strikes the tree she had been using for cover mere seconds prior. She could feel the demon's power surging before it had released the lightning bolt, if she had been less sensitive to energy, they would have been goners just like the tree.

She uses the explosion as a cover and makes a beeline for the field. It's her best chance of escape at this point.

"Get back here, girl!" Monten shouts. She turns her head slightly and catches a blurry glimpse of the demons pursuing her. Monten is stocky and almost lizard-like in his appearance. His "brother" by comparison is much more human-looking, a lot smaller and leaner. But she knows which one holds the most power. While Monten's appearance is unsettling, it is Hiten she fears more out of the two, and he is fast.

She narrowly avoids another lightning bolt, causing her hair to stand on end and a metallic taste to fill her mouth.

'Shit, shit, shit.' She thinks to herself. She knows she has no chance of getting away now, but she pushes her legs to go faster. Her lungs are burning, and her heart is pounding out of her chest, but she can't give up.

A soft whimper sounds from her coat, the baby fox must have woken up from all the commotion. She had nearly forgotten he was there.

She can finally see the field through the tree line, a feeling of relief washing over her as she realizes they could actually make it.

Her relief is short-lived when the ground in front of her explodes, launching her backward and into a tree. Her head cracks against the base, and she's pretty sure there is a branch through her thigh. Her vision blurs as nausea washes over her in a strong wave.

Her head snaps up in concern, making the world spin and pain to explode in her skull, and frantically opens her jacket to check on the pup. Two big, bright green, tear-stained eyes stare back at her. It's then that she fully realizes that she's the biggest idiot who ever lived. The once wholly fox-like creature is now more human toddler in appearance than fox. Still tiny and adorable, but distinctly more human, only the tail and pointed ears giving away what he truly is.

She leans her head back and groans. Of course, he's a demon, just her luck. She looks back down again, vision still cloudy, and checks him over.

"Are you okay?" She rasps. It hurts to talk, definitely a broken rib or two making breathing difficult. She shifts on the ground slightly as she hears the demon brothers approach them. Her leg throbs and she lets out a small cry of pain as she breaks off the end of the thin branch sticking out of her thigh, leaving the rest inside her leg. That's not going to be easy to run on. She'll have to wait until she gets home to have it taken out.

The fox demon nods his head slowly, lip quivering. He's terrified. Whether it's because of the two menacing figures approaching them or that she knows he's a demon now and thinks she'll abandon him, she can't be sure.

"Just stay quiet and out of sight, okay? I'm gonna do my best to get us out of here." At least she hopes she can.

She looks around for her bow and quiver and finds them several feet away, arrows strewn about on the forest floor. Huffing a sigh that makes her sides throb, she begins to shuffle over to her only means of survival. She's by no means the expert marksman her sister is, but she's no slouch.

She reaches her bow and quiver just as a giggly snort sounds from behind her.

"Look at this dumb human. She thinks that wooden sticks will protect her from the mighty Thunder Brothers." Monten's odd laughter continues. She does her best to ignore it and continues to frantically gather her arrows.

"Stupidity is an inherent human trait, Monten." Hiten chuckles. He stalks forward just as she finishes gathering her arrows and readying her bow.

"Stay back!" She wheezes, failing to sound as stern as she intended. She takes aim at Hiten and prepares herself to fire.

"A silly little bow isn't going to save you, girl." Hiten mocks. "You're going to die at the hands of the Thunder brothers. Just as many before you have, and many after you will."

He stalks closer to her, and she raises her bow higher, body tensing and heart pounding out of her chest. Her vision is still foggy, and the need to vomit has not lessened since she hit her head. Her arms tremble as he continues toward her.

"Look at how she trembles, brother! I love it when they tremble in fear." Monten states, pleasure lacing his voice and making her stomach roll even more. He hasn't moved from his spot near the edge of the field.

"I agree, Monten. It's my favorite part as well." Hiten purrs.

Heart pounding and mind racing, she remembers a thought she had when she was running. Hiten is the more powerful of the two. Monten is the weak link. Making up her mind and hoping for the best, she adjusts her aim and releases the arrow before either brother notices.

The arrow sails past Hiten's head. He doesn't even move to avoid it, knowing it won't hit him.

"You missed," Hiten says, smugness lacing his tone.

She smirks slightly, "No, I didn't."

A look of confusion passes over the lightning demon's face before he turns to look at his brother. Monten was still where he had been before, but now he had an arrow sticking out of his maxilla. Not precisely where she had been aiming, he had moved his head to the side slightly at the last second, but satisfying nonetheless.

"Monten…" Hiten breathes out, starting to make his way over to his brother to assess the damage.

"I am all right, brother." Monten growls, "But I am angry now. May I have the honor of killing this bitch?" The look he gives her is nothing short of murderous.

Hiten nods stiffly, anger rolling off of him in waves, "Make her hurt, baby brother."

It's Monten's turn to stalk forward now as Hiten watches. The power surge she begins to feel makes her take pause. Her eyes widen as she realizes perhaps she misjudged Monten's power level. This power, while different, is almost as strong as his brother's.

Monten opens his mouth wide, and electricity starts to glow and form a ball at the back of his throat, growing in brightness and size as his power builds.

'Oops…' she thinks to herself.

Hiten smirks in approval as his brother flexes his power. Her body tenses as she prepares herself for the hit. Kagome knows she can't survive this hit, that she should move, but she's frozen in shock.

Just as Monten is about to release his power, a tiny ball of fur flies at him, hitting him in the chest and causing him to shift slightly. The beam of electricity he releases narrowly misses her and makes her hair stand on end, the air crackling around her.

"What the…" Monten grunts, looking around in confusion.

She's just as confused as the demons. That is until she notices her jacket is unzipped and a certain baby fox missing from his sling.

"You damn runt! I thought we killed you with the rest of your family." Monten growls. A hard kick to the pup's side makes her wince. He's so small, and a blow like that should have killed him. Why he even tried to help her instead of just running is beyond her.

"Don't hurt him!" She shouts, wincing again as her ribs ache.

All three demons look at her, the brother's in amusement and the fox in shock.

"Why not? He's a demon. Don't your kind love to kill creatures like him?" Hiten teases.

"He's just a baby, he's done nothing wrong." She pleads. She knows it's pointless to plead with them when they obviously delight in torturing and killing, but she is desperate. Why she cares so much about a demon child she's just met, she has no idea. She only knows she needs to save him.

"A demon is a demon, or have you forgotten that?" Hiten kicks the pup again, this time adding some electricity to it. The small demon cries out in pain as he sails in her direction from the blow. "They all grow up to be monsters, no exception. I mean, just look at us!" He chuckles. She claws her way towards the fox desperately, holding him tightly to her chest once she reaches him.

"Please…" She wheezes, tears lining her eyes at both his pain and her own. The puncture wound to her thigh burns and her head throbs painfully. The boy clings to her tightly, and she slips him back into her jacket.

"Thank you for helping me." She gives him a watery smile, "But you need to get to safety."

The fox shakes his head rapidly, clinging to her tighter. He's afraid, she knows the feeling.

She smiles again and whispers, "What's your name?" She knows that this isn't the time for introductions, but if it gets him to run to safety, she'll do it.

"Shippo," He says softly.

"Shippo, I need you to run and hide somewhere until it's safe." She says as sternly as she can. It's getting harder to stay conscious. She must have lost more blood than she thought.

"No!" Shippo cries, hiding his face in her chest. "My mommy told me to hide. She said it would be okay. But she wasn't okay! They hurt her badly, and I couldn't help her!" He starts to sob loudly. "I couldn't help, and now my whole family is dead because of me!" He wails. Tears and blood now stain the front of her shirt. This was not how she thought her day would go.

Looking up at the two monsters in front of her, she gives them the best glare she can muster.

"You killed his mother?" She asks calmly.

Monten scoffs, "We killed his whole family. Don't you like the lovely belt his father's pelt made?"

She looks down, just now realizing that this disgusting creature is wearing a full fox pelt around his hips. Shippo lets out a soft cry against her chest and something inside her snaps. White-hot rage floods her system.

"Why?" She questions softly.

"Why what? Why did we kill them? Or maybe you are curious about my belt?" Monten taunts, patting his belt.

Hiten, who had been quietly observing up until then, decides to add something that makes her blood run cold. "We kill because we want to. His father was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, I guess. His mother died trying to protect this pathetic runt." He pauses for a moment, observing her reaction to his next words carefully. "His siblings were too easy, though. Fox pups aren't as much of a challenge. One hit from my lightning wiped them all out." His smile is maddening.

"You killed children…because you were bored?" She whispers.

"Yes," they say in unison. Both are obviously pleased with themselves and the reactions they are getting from her.

Her hold on the child clinging to her tightens as her other hand reaches for her bow.

"Hold on to me tightly and don't let go, okay?" She mutters to Shippo. He nods and tightens his grip on her, burying his face back in her chest to hide as best he can.

She releases him to ready her bow and takes aim.

"We already told you, girly, a little stick won't-" Monten's voice cuts off as her arrow pierces his chest. The purple glow it gives off, causing both demons' eyes to widen in shock.

"Priestess…" Hiten whispers in awe. "I thought your kind were wiped out in the war!" He roars in outrage.

"Sorry to disappoint you." She smirks.

"Brother Hiten…." Monten stutters. He starts to fall as his strength begins to leave him.

Hiten's head whips around in his brother's direction. A cry of outrage leaves him as he sprints to catch Monten's falling body.

Seizing the opportunity given to her, she grabs her things and starts making her way to the field as fast as she can on her bum leg.

She hears a loud cry of despair sound from behind her and knows the extra time the distraction of Monten's death gave her is gone. Her foot snags on a branch at the edge of the forest, and the searing pain that shoots down her leg causes black to dot her vision as she stumbles to the ground. She shuffles forward as best as she can to disappear in the tall grass that now surrounds her, hoping that she doesn't run into something worse while trying to escape Hiten.

The air around her crackles, and she knows what's coming before it can hit her. She rolls to her side, further cracking her ribs and making her vision swim, as the lightning strikes right where she had been laying previously.

"Shit," She breathes. She used up all her remaining strength to infuse her magic in that arrow to kill Monten.

"You retch!" A voice snarls above her. She turns her head to see Hiten glaring down at her, lightning crackling around his body, uncontrollably, because of his rage. "You killed my brother!"

"Yeah," she sighs, "and you've killed countless other innocents. Consider it overdue karma." She quips, rolling her eyes at his hypocrisy. Had she been in her right mind and not suffering from excessive blood loss, she would have been scared out of her mind, but right now, she is just annoyed.

"You bitch! You'll pay for this with your life!" Hiten screams, preparing to deliver a final blow that would probably obliterate everything within a one-mile radius.

"It's time to run now, Shippo." She says softly. He gives her a firm shake of his head and stubbornly burrows further into her. She sighs, too tired to argue anymore. She supposes she understands, though. She would rather die with someone than be left alone in this world, also.

The air around her starts to crackle in the telltale sign of Hiten's attack. She braces herself for the blow that will end her life. She waits and waits. Opening her eyes in annoyance, she prepares to tell Hiten to just get on with it, but it's not Hiten that's standing over her anymore. In fact, it seems like he's disappeared completely.

She raises up on her elbows to see where he went and is greeted by the sight of a lifeless Hiten splayed out on the ground about ten feet away from her. She feels that she should have heard him go down or at least the struggle that caused his death, but the ringing in her ears has only gotten worse and is nearly deafening at this point.

A flash of red catches her attention out of the corner of her eye. She looks over to see a man standing to the side of Hiten, glaring down at his body in disgust.

She stares dumbly at him for a few seconds, taking in his appearance. He's handsome, with a strong jaw and high cheekbones. His nose fits his face perfectly, not too big, not too small. What is perhaps the most striking thing about him, though, is his piercing golden eyes that seem to glow in the late afternoon light. His hair was long, much longer than her own, and a beautiful silver color that gleamed in the sunlight.

He was dressed in billowy red pants and a baggy long sleeve shirt. The style almost reminds Kagome of her old martial arts uniform that her grandfather had insisted she wear when training. His outfit was too big for him, baggy in most places, but still managed to look good on him somehow.

There was one other crucial detail about him, he wasn't human. Two small dog ears sat at the top of his head. They perk in her direction as she slowly sits up more, not very graceful in her movements as the world starts spinning around her.

"Kikyo?" The newcomer asks in disbelief.

She falters for a moment, looking up at the stranger in confusion. He just stares back, a look of surprise crossing his features. "Kikyo, is that you? What are you doing out here?" He gets closer to her with each word until he's standing over her. He looks her over in a mix of confusion and annoyance.

"What?" She mumbles, grabbing her head to try and stop the spinning. It doesn't work.

He crouches down next to her, staring into her eyes with his sunshine ones.

"Cut the shit, Kikyo. Why are you here?" He growls.

She blinks at him in surprise of his sudden attitude change. They hold each other's gaze for a few more seconds before she loses the fight with her nausea and leans over to the side to empty her stomach. The newcomer makes a noise of disgust and backs away as she tries to catch her breath.

As she leans back, Shippo wiggles his way out of her jacket and sits in her lap, looking up at her in concern.

"Are you okay?" He asks in a small voice. Eyes still glassy and red from crying.

"I'm alright, Shippo. Just a little nauseous from earlier is all." She mumbles out, giving a small, forced smile to ease his nerves. He doesn't buy it.

"You hit your head really hard earlier! And your leg has been bleeding bad for a while now." His voice starts to get panicky and high. She brings up a hand and gently rubs the top of his head.

"I'll be fine." She insists.

"No, you won't." The stranger grumbles. "It's not nice to lie to children, Kikyo."

She tries to give the stranger her most menacing look, which falls flat, as Shippo starts to cry again in her arms.

"Thanks a lot." She grumbles, looking down and petting Shippo's head as she holds him close to her chest. "And stop calling me Kikyo. That's not my name."

He frowns at her. A look of distrust crossing his features.

"Oh, really?" He quips, "Like I'd ever believe a thing you say anyway. You've always been a lying bitch."

She whips her head up in his direction, regretting it immediately, but pushing through the nausea to give him a piece of her mind.

"I don't know how you know that name or why you think that it's mine, but I'm not a liar." She seethes, "The only person I know with that name in this entire area is my sister. So, how do you know her name, and why do you keep calling me by it?"

He looks taken aback for a moment at her outburst. She doesn't know how it happens, but one minute he's standing three feet away, glaring at her, and the next he's in her face, looking over her features carefully. She pulls the sniffling fox pup closer to her chest, but otherwise stays still, not wanting to provoke another demon so soon.

He leans back, letting out a grunt. "You're not Kikyo." He murmurs.

"That's what I've been telling you." She grumbles, rolling her eyes.

He just stays where he is, observing her. She has enough of his antics and decides it's time to try to get back home. She tucks Shippo back into his make-shift carrier, giving him a comforting pat before zipping up her jacket, and attempting to stand. After some struggling, she manages to get to her feet. The dog demon is still where he was before, a blank look on his face.

"Thanks for the help." She murmurs, but she's pretty sure he doesn't hear her, too busy thinking about whatever it is that has him so silent.

She goes to take a step forward, and her injured leg gives out, making her fall back to the ground. She braces for an impact that never comes. Opening her eyes slowly, she is met with striking golden eyes. Her vision becomes spotty again, the fight for consciousness finally being lost.

"What's your name?" She asks. If he's going to keep saving her, she feels she should at least know his name.

He looks at her for a minute as if contemplating whether or not he can trust her with it.

"Mine's Kagome," she mumbles softly as she begins to fade.

He shifts her gently so that she is cradled against his body.

"InuYasha," He huffs as if it's a great inconvenience that he has to tell her his name.

She opens her eyes one more time to look at him before she passes out, repeating his name softly as the darkness consumes her.

"InuYasha."

**Edit(1/21/2020)**

**Hello, **

**I slightly edited this chapter to improve my spelling/word choice as well as to fix grammatical errors. **

**Thanks for reading! **

**~Aislyn**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

A young man huffs out a sigh for perhaps the tenth time in the last hour. He leans back against the wall behind him, giving his eyes a rest from the gun scope and rubs his hand over his face slowly, bored out of his mind. It was too quiet today. Usually, by this time of the day, he would have taken out at least one or two small demons that got too close to the perimeter fence. But there has been absolutely nothing, and he is hungry.

He closes his eyes as the wind picks up for a moment, rustling his unruly mess of pink hair. At least the breeze is gentle and refreshing today. It could get sweltering up on the roof of the watchtower sometimes, so he is grateful for the cool breeze.

The sound of soft footfalls catches his attention, causing him to open his slightly slanted, dark green eyes, and turn his head slightly to see who is approaching. A young man with shaggy raven hair and droopy blue eyes approaches him with his hands in his pockets.

"Anything yet?" The newcomer asks.

"No, nothing yet. It's quiet today." He sighs, leaning his head back against the wall and stares up at the cloudless blue sky.

Shuffling can be heard as the newcomer settles next to him on the roof.

The dark-haired idiot chuckles lightly, "How unusual."

The Pinkette chooses to ignore him. If he starts an argument now, it'll just escalate, and they'll give away their position. The Captain would be pissed if they did that again. He shivers at the thought, nobody likes it when the Captain gets angry, even Gramps gets nervous.

"Shut up, Gray." He mutters, leaning forward to look through the gun scope again.

"Watch your attitude, Natsu. I came to keep you company so you wouldn't get too bored and set something on fire. I'm nice." He replies haughtily.

Natsu rolls his eyes, not buying his frenemy's excuse for a second.

"You came up here because Erza told you to and you're too much of a pussy to say no," Natsu smirks as Gray gives him a disgruntled look.

"Shut up," Gray mutters, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting.

He gives a light kick to Natsu's side.

Natsu chuckles. It is nice to have company up on the roof after so many hours of quiet, even if it is droopy-eyes. As much as he and Gray may fight, Gray is probably the closest thing Natsu has ever had to a brother. Not that Natsu would ever admit that to anyone.

"Any word from the pioneer group that went out this morning?" The pinkette asks distractedly as he adjusts the gun and scope to look in a new direction.

"Nah," Gray sighs, picking at his nails, "you know how those damn airheads are."

Natsu nods, shrugging his shoulders. Out of all the groups that went outside the perimeter fence, the pioneers were definitely the least reliable as far as communication was concerned. Weeks could go by before any kind of message was sent to inform the rest of the settlement they were still alive and well.

But everyone had to have a job to stay here, so he supposed those people were better off flitting around outside the fence instead of making trouble inside.

Natsu has a few jobs, himself. Right now, he is at his least favorite one. The 'Watch' position is one of the more tedious tasks since things had calmed down a few years ago. He prefers hunting. At least when he hunts, he can have something to show for his work and help keep his family fed.

His favorite job, though, is 'Exterminating.' That group is handpicked by Gramps because they are the strongest, fastest, and most efficient demon killers in the settlement. They are sent out to take down as many threatening demons as possible, and he loves every minute of it.

Gray works with him in both Hunting and Exterminating. They usually turn it into a competition to see who can get the best game or who can kill the most demons in one run. Of course, Captain Erza isn't a fan of their bickering and challenges. She wants them to 'bond' and 'be brothers' like she knows they could be. Natsu gags at the thought of being that close with Gray. Erza just doesn't get how much Gray pisses him off. Just his presence alone annoys him.

"Kikyo's been trying to go out on her own again," Gray says, suddenly.

Natsu pauses his fiddling with the scope to turn and look at his friend.

"Still no word from Kagome, then, I'm guessing." He sighs.

Gray nods, a look of concern crossing his features.

"Kagome's been gone for almost a week, and we haven't heard anything from her in three days." Gray frowns down at his hands, picking at the scabs he finds along his knuckles. "She never goes a day without sending us an update when she's out on long missions like this."

Natsu nods in agreement. Kagome always checks in every day without fail when she does solo missions. She is still reliable in that sense, but the scouting mission she went on this time is in a more risky area a few miles west of the safe house. That area is usually quiet, but it is also uncharted territory and relatively unknown as far as what lives there.

Kagome was only sent on her own because her old village was in that area, and she is familiar with the landscape. Kikyo had demanded she accompany her baby sister, but she had been injured on one of her previous Extermination runs at the time Kagome was set to leave. Kagome refused to let her sister accompany her, telling Kikyo she needed her rest and would only slow her down. It was only supposed to take her about five days, anyway.

The Higurashi sisters are still relatively new to the community, only having joined about two years prior with their much younger brother and what was left of their village. Kikyo, Kagome, and Sota are orphans, something Natsu can relate to, having lost their parents when a pack of demons attacked their village. They mostly keep to themselves, but nobody can deny how valuable they are to the community. Both Kikyo and Kagome are experts at identifying plants and know which ones are best for healing and medicine. They are also pros with bows and arrows, but it isn't their deadly accuracy that make them powerhouses. They come from a long line of influential spiritual leaders known as priestesses. Only the women of their tribe hold spiritual power. They can bend it to their will and infuse it into weapons to kill demons. Lady Kaede, an elder of the sisters' previous tribe, who managed to escape with them, is also a priestess. However, she is an elderly woman, and her spiritual powers are weakening.

Natsu thinks back to the first time he met the sisters. They were so alike in their physical appearance that he mistook them for twins at first, even though Kikyo is three years older than Kagome. Both have long raven hair that falls to about mid-back, light skin, and dark brown eyes. The only difference is that where Kikyo's eyes are hard, cold, and closed off, Kagome's are welcoming and bright, filled with a warmth that draws people to her.

Kikyo is stern and severe, rarely smiling, unless she is with her siblings, and always training to better herself. She is so much like Erza that Natsu avoids her as much as he can. He feels terrible, she is a kind woman, usually helping the sick and injured, but if she is anything like that red-headed sadist, he would rather keep his distance.

Kagome, on the other hand, is sweet and always wears a smile. She helps care for the children and the elderly most days. Her kindness is never confused with weakness, however. Just like her sister, she has deadly accuracy with a bow, and her spiritual powers are strong.

Their skills earned them a spot on Natsu and Gray's Extermination unit. He has to admit, they are valuable assets to their team.

Shuffling and the tapping of a box against the heel of Gray's hand pulls Natsu from his thoughts.

"You better not let Erza catch you with those." The pinkette sighs, motioning to the box in his rival's hands.

He probably got them from Wakaba. Somehow that man seems to have an endless supply. Natsu is convinced that Wakaba is growing his own plants, tobacco, and otherwise.

Gray lets out a noncommittal grunt as he lights the cigarette placed between his lips. Natsu wrinkles his nose at the acrid scent of tobacco smoke filling the air around them.

"I've been stressed lately," Gray says lamely.

Natsu just shakes his head again. Gray has tried and failed to quit smoking dozens of times already. He always blames his failure on "stress."

Deciding not to comment on Gray's lack of self-control, a great feat in and of itself for Natsu, he instead continues their conversation from before.

"Do you think Gramps is gonna send out a rescue team to search for her?" Natsu asks.

Gray nods his head, taking a long drag of his cigarette, before exhaling the smoke, "Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's putting one together with Erza and Kikyo right now." He flicks the accumulating ash from the tip of his cigarette before continuing. "We might be going out again sooner than we thought."

Natsu nods, not minding getting out to stretch his legs at all. He always prefers his days outside the fence, anyway.

"Sounds good to me." He grunts as he settles down again and adjusts the scope for what seems like the hundredth time that day.

A slight movement ten yards from the fence catches his eyes. He holds his breath as he waits a few seconds for whatever it is to show itself more clearly. He doesn't want to accidentally shoot one of his fellow refugees by mistake.

It takes another couple of seconds, but a small rabbit jumps out from under a bush that lines the fence, nose twitching rapidly. Natsu groans and pushes the gun and scope away in annoyance. He's been up on the watchtower roof for five hours with nothing to report, and he just wants to be done with his shift so he can go to the dining hall to get some food.

"Natsu! Gray!" A robust feminine voice shouts from the base of the tower.

Both men startle, and Gray scrambles to extinguish the cigarette and get rid of the evidence of his smoking. Natsu peeks his head over the side, waving down at the red-headed woman below.

"Hey Erza, how's it going?" Natsu says lamely, swallowing nervously.

Erza motions for them to come down to her, a stern look on her face. They look at each other nervously as Natsu flicks on the safety on his gun before gathering up his things. They both get up and make their way down to where their Captain is waiting for them.

She turns to face them as they approach, giving them a slight nod in greeting. Small movement in Natsu's peripheral makes him turn his head to see Kikyo leaning against the watchtower wall, a faraway look in her eyes. She doesn't greet them; just stay's quiet. It's then that Natsu notices that they're both dressed in travel gear, large bags slung over their backs.

"You going somewhere?" Natsu asks as he comes to a stop in front of Erza.

She nods once.

"Yes, and so are the both of you." She says sternly.

Natsu and Gray look at each other knowingly. They're probably going after Kagome.

"Go home and get prepared quickly. Pack enough provisions for at least a week. We leave in one hour." She informs them.

The young men nod and turn to head back to their living quarters to get their stuff together.

"Oh, and Gray?" Erza asks calmly. Both men pause, Gray turning to acknowledge the redhead.

"Yes?" He asks tentatively.

"If I smell cigarette smoke on you one more time, the consequences will be severe." She glares.

Gray pales and nods jerkily.

"Yes, ma'am." He says hoarsely.

Natsu snickers to himself softly. He warned Gray what would happen. If the idiot is going to keep ignoring his advice, he deserves whatever Erza has in store for him. He sends a smug look in Gray's direction as they continue on their way back to their living quarters.

"Don't even say it." Gray growls.

Natsu chuckles at his rival's embarrassment.

_ "Do you think she's gonna be okay?"_

_ "She'll be fine."_

_ "But she's been asleep for three whole days!"_

_ "Then maybe she'll die. Either way, it's not my problem."_

_ "Don't say that! She can't die! I don't want her to die!"_

_ "Would you just shut up, kid? You're pissing me off." _

Kagome's eyes roll in her head as she starts to regain consciousness. She can hear muffled voices from somewhere nearby, but can't make out who they are or what they're saying. Her head is throbbing slightly, and she can feel a pulsing pain in her right thigh.

Her eyes flutter, lids heavy, and hard to open. She groans softly as she pushes herself to open her eyes. When she finally gets them open, she has to blink rapidly to adjust to the blinding sunlight.

She lets out a soft grunt as she slowly pushes her upper body off the ground to be in a sitting position. Her ribs ache as she tenses her abdominal muscles. Taking in her surroundings, she realizes she has absolutely no idea where she is.

"Mmm, where am I?" She grumbles, placing her hand over her forehead and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

Her tongue is swollen and dry from disuse, so her words come out slurred. Two pairs of eyes snap in her direction, startled out of their bickering.

"KAGOME!" A shrill voice shrieks.

She flinches at the noise, head still giving off a dull ache. She nearly topples over as a small ball of fur launches itself at her chest. Her ribs creak uncomfortably, and she is confused for a moment as to who this furball could possibly be.

"I was so scared!" The small child whines, rubbing his teary eyes and running nose into her shirt. "You wouldn't wake up, and Inuyasha kept saying you were probably going to die! Please don't die!"

Memories flash through her mind quickly, reminding her of her fight with the 'Thunder Brothers', which ultimately led to her being here. Wherever here is.

"Shippo?" She mumbles, distractedly running her fingers through his hair to comfort him.

She looks around the small cave slowly, taking in her surroundings. She rubs her fingers over the edges of the straw mat beneath her. Her pack, bow, and quiver lay next to her on the floor of the cave in a neat pile. A feeling of being watched causes her to look towards the mouth of the cave, again having to blink a few times to adjust to the bright light filtering in.

The demon boy from before, the one who helped save her, stands stock-still, looking as if he's trying to decide whether or not he should run. She blinks at him a few more times before giving him a soft smile.

"Did you bring me here?" She asks hoarsely.

He tenses briefly before nodding once. She nods slightly, looking down at Shippo, quickly, before looking back up at the dog demon.

"Thank you." She says.

He looks taken aback for a moment before scoffing and rolling his eyes, looking out into the forest beyond their little cave. Shippo taps her shoulder lightly to get her attention, and she looks down at him, smiling at how cute he is.

"Inuyasha carried you all the way here, and he helped me take care of you every day!" Shippo says, smiling brightly.

"Is that so…?" Kagome mutters softly, looking up at the man before her.

He looks at her out of the corner of his eyes, something like uncertainty flashing through them before quickly looking away again.

"Yeah!" Shippo exclaims, drawing her attention back to him. "He helped me make fires to keep you warm and give you water so you wouldn't get more sick. He even took care of your leg for you!"

At the mention of her injury, her leg gives a painful throb. She grimaces slightly before looking down at her leg to asses the wound as best she can through her pants. What she sees, however, makes her freeze and her cheeks to burn.

"Shippo?" She asks in a deceptively, calm voice.

He hums in acknowledgment, fiddling with the end of his fluffy tail.

"Where are my pants?" She asks in a slightly squeaky voice.

She doesn't miss the way Inuyasha tenses where he stands, ears twitching anxiously.

Shippo looks up at her with his big green eyes, the very picture of innocence.

"Inuyasha said we had to take them off so we could take care of your injury better." Shippo replies.

"I see…" She mutters, composure starting to crack as mortification washes over her.

She gently shifts Shippo off of her lap, placing him on the floor next to her and looks up at the silver-haired man, watching as he tries to flee. She reaches out, grabbing her bow and an arrow, and fires it in Inuyasha's direction. It hits the wall right in front of his face, just barely missing his nose and casting a purple glow around them as her power envelops the arrow. Inuyasha looks at her owlishly.

"What the fuck was that?" He shouts in outrage, storming towards her.

"Explain." She says through her teeth.

His earlier anxious fidgeting and refusal to look at her for more than a few seconds at a time makes sense now.

"You were bleeding out!" He yells at her in annoyance, throwing his hands up in the air as if to emphasize his point. "You should be grateful I did anything at all to help you! I could have just left you in that field to bleed out and die."

She bares her teeth at him.

"And the best way to help me was by undressing me?" She growls out.

In the back of her mind, she realizes she is acting unreasonably and that he was only trying to help, but embarrassment clouds her judgment.

The dog rolls his eyes.

"Don't flatter yourself." He scoffs. "I only did it to stop the bleeding and to remove that branch. I'm not even remotely interested in a little girl like you, so calm down." He sneers.

She makes an offended noise and shoots him an evil look. He doesn't have to be so rude. While Kagome doesn't think she is the most beautiful or sexiest woman in the world, she has been complimented on her body by enough men in her lifetime to know she is desirable. Her legs and butt are toned and firm, and while her chest isn't substantial in size, it isn't small either. She is curvy, and she knows she is desirable. So, she is taken aback at his insult. But, she realizes that trying to argue with him on the subject will get her nowhere.

She lets out a long sigh.

"Thank you for caring for my wound." She says petulantly.

He looks surprised for a moment by her sudden change in attitude before scowling at her and turning his head away.

"Feh, whatever." He grumbles, sitting down on the floor roughly and crossing his arms.

They glare at each other for a few more seconds before Kagome sighs and looks back down at an utterly unfazed baby fox. He is obviously too concentrated on playing with his little trinkets to pay attention to their petty argument. He notices her looking at him and gives her a bright smile, crawling back into her lap and showing off his toys to her. She smiles softly down at him and rubs his head affectionately.

"Inuyasha?" The girl asks softly.

He looks at her blankly, so she decides to continue speaking.

"I am going to need to start heading back home soon. My sister is probably worried sick, and knowing Kikyo, she's probably already put a search party together to find me." She says.

At the mention of her sister's name, Inuyasha tenses, and his ears flatten on his head. She isn't sure how exactly, but somehow this demon and her sister know each other, and judging by his reactions, it is not in a friendly way. She'll have to ask him about it but now is not the time. She has to focus on getting home first.

"Would you be willing to point me in the direction of the field you found me in? I can find my way from there." She asks as pleasantly as she can.

She starts to get her stuff together, but pauses and looks back over to him, cheeks tinting red.

"I'm also going to need my pants." She says meekly.

He observes her for a moment before abruptly getting up and walking out of the cave. She supposes she should have known better than to hope a demon would help her get back home. She sighs, looking down at Shippo again.

"I guess it's just you and me, then, buddy." She sighs.

He smiles brightly at her and jumps off of her lap to gather his things. As she is about to start trying to stand, Inuyasha stomps back into the cave with her pants in hand. He holds them out to her, glaring at the wall and refusing to look at her.

Kagome looks at him in surprise before taking the offered pants, thanking him softly as she pulls them on. She makes sure to be careful around her injury, and once she has them buttoned, she looks at Inuyasha again. He is still glaring at the wall.

"Thank you." She says again, softly.

He doesn't respond to her, just continues to glare at the wall.

Kagome shakily manages to get to her feet. Leaning heavily against the wall, she huffs out a breath as she bends down to collect her pack and quiver, slinging her belongings over her shoulders. As she grabs her bow, she decides it's probably smart to try and use it as a cane. Kagome isn't so foolish as to think her leg is healed enough to bear much weight. But, even with her makeshift cane, her leg buckles, and she falls forward as she tries to take the first step.

Instead of hitting the ground like she was prepared to do, she instead finds herself pressed against the rough fabric of Inuyasha's shirt again.

"Idiot." He mutters, pushing her away from his body, but keeping his clawed hands on her shoulders to steady her. "There is no way you're going to get far on that leg. You're easy prey, you'd be lucky if you made it even an hour without getting eaten by some hungry demon."

She glares at him slightly, hating that this rude demon keeps saving her.

"Then what do you suggest I do? I can't stay here forever. I need to go home." She quips.

He looks her over before sighing and looking down at his feet, which she notices are surprisingly bare.

"It's a day and a half journey by foot to get back to that field. I'm pretty sure I know where your settlement is, and that's almost a two and a half day's journey from the field. There is no way you'll make it four days, on foot, with a bum leg and only a runt like him to keep you company." He says, motioning to a disgruntled looking Shippo.

"I could protect her!" The little fox quips.

Inuyasha scoffs and looks like he's about to say something that would hurt Shippo's feelings when Kagome interjects.

"Inuyasha, if you wanted to come with me so badly, you should have just said so from the start." She teases.

Inuyasha blushes slightly before letting go of her shoulders and moving away from her, crossing his arms petulantly and going back to glaring at the wall.

"I don't want to come with you. Go on your own if you really want to. I won't lose any sleep at night if you die." He grumbles.

She rolls her eyes at his attitude and looks him over for a moment. She knows she should be more wary around this man, he is a demon after all, but if what Shippo said is true, then this demon helped keep her alive and safe for three days. He didn't have to do that. So, making up her mind, she decides to trust him and hope it doesn't come back to bite her later.

"Inuyasha?" She asks.

He looks over at her out of the corner of his eye, grunting in acknowledgment.

She sighs, hoping she isn't about to make a fool of herself. "Will you accompany me on my journey back to my home? I can't do this on my own. I need your help."

He turns to her and stares at her for a minute. He seems to do that a lot, just stare. Just as she is about to tell him to forget it and that she'll do it on her own, he answers her.

"Kagome, if you wanted me to come with you so badly, you should have just said so from the start." He smirks, teasing her the same way she taunted him before.

**Hi there!**

**Thank you so much for reading my story. This is my first time ever sharing anything I've written with anyone. I would love to hear what you guys think! I would love to know about anything you think needs fixing or improving.**

**I hope to update this at least once a week on Monday or Tuesday. I am going on vacation for a couple weeks at the end of June so I am not sure how much I'll be updating during that time. **

**Thanks again for reading!**

**-Aislyn**

**Edited (1/21/2020)**

**Slight grammar edits. Thank you for reading! **

**~Aislyn**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Natsu rubs his hands through his unruly pink hair slowly, the cool water from the stream helping him cool off from the intense summer heat. Natsu has always loved the hot weather, but even he had to admit that this heat was brutal. He dives under the water again and swims further into the middle of the stream. When he resurfaces, he flips onto his back and just floats lazily, thinking about what he and his group had found earlier that day.

Natsu, Erza, Gray, and Kikyo had been out searching for Kagome for three days now. The first two days were uneventful. They just traveled the path they knew she was supposed to be using and found evidence along the way, via discarded camp sites, that she had been there. There had been no sign of anything out of the ordinary at all.

Today, however, they found something interesting. As they neared the stream he was currently bathing in, it started to look like they stumbled onto a war zone.

Gray noticed the tree first. It had looked as if the thing had spontaneously combusted, wood chips scattered all over the forest floor surrounding the base of the tree was all that was left of it.

That was when they noticed the large, crater like holes scattered sporadically leading towards the field. It was obvious that they were made by explosions of some sort, but what caused them was unknown to the group.

Near one of the largest craters is where they found the blood. It was dried, but it couldn't have been more than a week old. All of the damage, in fact, from the looks of things, had to have taken place within the last week. There had been a fight here and whether Kagome was involved or not had them all on edge, especially Kikyo.

The most interesting find, however, came in the form of two very smelly, very dead demons. The bodies were still in the very early stages of decay, flesh still in tact, but badly discolored. There were also signs that small animals had helped themselves to some of the demons' flesh.

There was no mistaking who had done the first one in. The two arrows that pierced his body was evidence enough of Kagome's involvement. That body wasn't the one that had them worried. In fact, Natsu, as well as the others, was rather impressed and proud she had managed to take down the demon on her own.

It was the second body that made them nervous. This one had not fallen by Kagome's arrows. He had been torn to shreds, his right eye completely missing from his head from the slashes delivered to his face. His chest had a hole blown clean through it, heart missing completely.

A few feet away, in the tall grasses of the field, there was evidence of more blood. There was no way that demon could have survived long enough to drag himself away from the attacker, so they assumed it belonged to Kagome.

Natsu brings his hands up to scrub at his face. From the two bloody areas they found, they knew she had lost a lot of blood. If she was still alive, then she probably wouldn't be that much longer with the amount that she had lost. Also, blood was like a magnet for demons, they craved it and would follow the scent for miles just to get a taste.

Other than the blood, however, Natsu was concerned about what killed the second demon, because it definitely wasn't human. Natsu worries his bottom lip and furrows his brow as he thinks of the kind of demon that could be strong enough to cause that kind of damage. If it had Kagome… Natsu didn't want to think about what could have happened to her by now.

"What have you gotten yourself into, Kagome?" He sighs to himself.

The sun shining through the trees has him squeezing his eyes shut at the sudden brightness. The wind rustles the leaves on the nearby trees, causing some to rain down onto the forest floor. Natsu smiles as the breeze lightly flows over the front of his body where the water isn't covering. He's happy that they have been blessed with this lovely breeze the past few days. It makes the heat more manageable for long travel.

"Ew! What the hell, Natsu?" The sudden yell has Natsu lifting his head to see Gray at the bank of the river, a disgusted look on his face. "Why do you have to have your junk out in the open? Nobody wants to see that!" Gray makes a gagging sound that has Natsu rolling his eyes.

"You're just jealous mine's bigger, droopy eyes." Natsu shoots back.

He flips onto his stomach and swims back to where his feet can reach the bottom again and stands, water coming up to just over his hips.

Gray scoffs and gives Natsu a disgruntled look, "You wish, Pyro." He grumbles. "Just be glad it was me who found you and not one of the girls."

Natsu glares at Gray. That droopy eyed bastard knows he hates being called 'Pyro.' He only caused a few fires by accident, which he apologized for, and now he's forever known as a pyromaniac.

"Did you come here for a reason, or did you just want to ruin my bath?" Natsu sneers.

Gray's whole attitude changes at Natsu's question, the spark in his eyes from their argument dulling.

"We found something." He says.

The way Gray is acting has Natsu stumbling out of the lake quickly to stand at Gray's side.

"What did you find?" He asks breathlessly. "Is it Kagome?"

Gray looks startled at Natsu's sudden nearness and takes a step back.

"No" Gray sighs "We haven't found anything else regarding Kagome since earlier."

Natsu looks at Gray in confusion.

"Then what is it?" He asks.

"Nothing good." Gray mumbles, looking down at his feet and kicking a rock next to his shoe. It hits Natsu in the shin and he chuckles in amusement for a second before making a disgusted face again and putting his hand over his eyes.

"Dude!" The raven haired boy yells "Why the fuck is your dick still out?"

Natsu looks down, noticing his lack of attire and then back up to shrug is shoulders at Gray.

"Oh please, it's not like it's anything you haven't seen before" The pinkette sighs in exasperation.

Honestly, Gray can be so dramatic sometimes. Like he has any right to be offended by Natsu's nudity. Gray has the habit of stripping when he gets drunk or stressed, so he has no right to make a big deal out of Natsu's dick being out. Natsu has seen Gray's more times than he'd like.

Natsu scoffs as he stalks over to grab his clothes and hastily puts them on. It's a bit of a struggle to pull the clothes on with his body still being wet, but the sooner he can get Gray off his back, the better.

With his clothes on, he turns back to Gray and raises his arms to his sides, motioning at his body with his hands.

"Better now?" He asks, annoyed.

"Still gross. But at least I can't see your junk anymore." Gray shrugs.

Natsu rolls his eyes, grabbing his belongings and walking over to Gray. He looks at his rival expectantly for a few seconds, but when all Gray does is stare blankly back, Natsu sighs.

"You gonna show me what you guys found or stare at me all fucking day?" He asks.

Gray scoffs and turns his back to Natsu, "Right this way." He gestures with his hand.

Natsu follows behind Gray, zoning out and wondering why what they found could be so important if it had nothing to do with Kagome. They pass by the demolished tree and push their way through small shrubs that Natsu hopes are not poisonous. He sees Erza and Kikyo talking up ahead, the women seem to be having a heated discussion in hushed whispers as the boys approach.

"We are wasting time here." Kikyo says through her teeth, "My sister is out there somewhere, probably dying if she isn't dead already, and you want to investigate a couple of dead foxes?" Her voice raises towards the end, arms going up in exasperation.

Erza gives Kikyo a look that would have had most people back home, himself included, cowering in fear and begging for forgiveness. Kikyo, however, just glares right back at Erza, holding her ground stubbornly.

"I understand you are upset, Kikyo." Erza says firmly, "But it is important that we are smart about this. It can't be a coincidence that a family of foxes is slaughtered so near to where we found all of that destruction. This could be a part of the reason she is missing. I will investigate this as thoroughly as needed to find out if that is the truth."

Kikyo snarls at Erza but says nothing. At the mention of dead foxes, Natsu looks at the ground beneath them and sees the body of an adult fox lying on the ground. But he only sees the one fox, not a 'family' as the red head put it.

Natsu clears his throat and both women turn to face the newcomers.

"I only see one fox." He says.

Erza and Gray look down at the body and then back up at him, a sort of sadness in their gazes. Kikyo just huffs and crosses her arms over her chest, face impassive and revealing nothing of her emotions, even if her body language is.

"The rest are in there." She points to a rock formation a few yards away. Natsu furrows his brow, but walks in the direction of the rocks anyway. As he gets closer, he notices the opening to what must have been a small den. All that it is left of it is rubble, now.

As he is looking around the destroyed den, he notices the first little paw sticking out from the rubble. He swallows hard, feeling dread pool in his stomach. As he gets closer, he sees more body parts peaking out, a tail here, a leg there, so small and delicate, they could only belong to pups. He looks away suddenly as he is proven right, the small body of a baby fox is lying with only one leg crushed under the rubble towards the back of the den.

He stares wide eyed at the opposite wall, shock and anger overwhelming him. His hands curl into tight fists and he clenches his teeth.

What monster did this to children? He thinks to himself as he storms out of the cave towards Erza.

"Who did this?" He seethes, hands still tightly fisted and shaking in rage.

Erza looks taken aback for a moment by his sudden outburst, but recovers quickly. Her features soften in understanding, and she walks closer to him, placing her hand on his shoulder.

"I don't know yet, Natsu. That's what I'm trying to investigate." She says calmly.

"Well, we need to find out soon! Whoever did this will pay! I'll make them wish they were never even born." He growls, shrugging her hand off of his shoulder and storming back towards the river.

"Natsu! Come back here." Erza shouts after him.

He ignores her and continues walking back towards the stream. He needs to calm down and he can't do that with Erza and Gray staring at him.

As he is walking, the silhouette of the dead demon Kagome killed catches his eye. He walks over to the fallen demon and observes him with morbid curiosity. Kagome must have put a lot of magical energy into her arrow to get this thing down with one shot.

As he admires Kagome's handiwork, orange fur wrapped around the demons waist catches his attention out of the corner of his eye. When he leans back to see what it is, he pauses. Wrapped around the demon's waist is the pelt of a fox. Blood still stained the fur in some places, proving it had been skinned recently. He grinds his teeth together and then rips the pelt off of the corpse.

Holding onto the pelt tightly in his fist, he makes his way back to where the others are.

"I figured out who killed them." He sneers, "Just found this wrapped around that fat demon Kagome killed."

He throws the pelt down next to the other adult fox and crosses his arms. Erza looks down at the pelt and picks it up, admiring its fur.

"So this was a related incident." Erza mutters, looking over at Kikyo as if to say, 'I told you so.'

Kikyo just ignores her and continues to pick at her nails indifferently. Erza shakes her head and sighs, turning her attention back to the young men standing in front of her.

"I don't know how she got involved, but I'm assuming she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I found some bloody tracks leading in the direction of the stream. They were small from the looks of them. My guess is one of the babies survived and she ran into it as it tried to escape. Those demons must have been hunting it and she got caught in the crosshairs." Erza theorizes.

Natsu and Gray nod their heads in agreement. Kagome was definitely the kind of person who would stop to help an injured baby fox. The sound of someone clearing their throat has the three of them turning in Kikyo's direction. She looks impassive as ever, but Natsu can tell from her fidgeting that she's getting impatient.

"That's a nice theory and all, but even if it's true how does that help us find my sister? We know she fought those demons near the field, and that she was hurt, but she couldn't have just disappeared. There are no tracks leading away from that spot at all, not to mention the fact that she wasn't the one who killed the second demon." Kikyo says. "So the question remains, who killed that second demon and what did they do to my sister?"

Natsu looks at her for a few seconds, finally noticing the toll all this stress over losing her sister has been causing her. Her face is pale and gaunt, bags lining underneath both of her eyes. Her usually neat and shiny black hair is dull and thrown into a loose messy knot on her head.

Nobody says anything for a while, everyone lost in their own thoughts. It's Gray that finally breaks the silence.

"It couldn't have been a human that caused that damage to the second demon. I think another demon interfered somehow." He says.

Natsu and Erza nod their heads in agreement. Kikyo remains as impassive as ever.

"But if another demon interfered, then we should have found her body. There is no way a demon that strong could have ignored the lure of her blood. They're bloodthirsty, mindless creatures." Kikyo interjects.

Natsu has to agree with this statement. He has never seen a demon that was able to just ignore blood. Hell, he's been on the receiving end of their bloodlust more times than he can count.

"Maybe we are not dealing with just any ordinary demon, then." Erza muses, looking at each of them in the eye. Natsu has very rarely seen Erza seem unsure of herself. The fact that she seems so uneasy, now, has him on edge as well.

"Well, this complicates things." Gray grunts, crossing his arms over his chest.

Natsu couldn't agree more with that statement.

Wind whips at Kagome's face, hair flying wildly behind her as she soars through the air. Her arms tighten around the dog demon's shoulders as he leaps off the ground again, propelling them through the air at speeds she could have never imagined. Shippo clings to her shoulder as tightly as he can so he won't fall off.

Inuyasha had said the journey would take about four days, by foot, to reach her home. With how fast they are going she can only assume he meant a day and a half by his version of travel. Gods only know how long it would have taken her to get back on her own.

"You know," Kagome shouts over the wind, "when I said you could accompany me I didn't mean you had to carry me on your back the whole way."

She can feel his chest rumble in what she assumes is him responding to her, but his voice is too soft to reach her ears.

"What?" She shouts.

Inuyasha stops suddenly, causing Kagome to jerk forward and let out a yelp of surprise.

"I said," Inuyasha drawls, "that you are too damn slow walking on your own and I don't want to be stuck with you or that little runt for longer than I have to. Understand?" He drops her suddenly and she lets out a grunt as her butt hits the ground.

"What the hell, Inuyasha? You don't have to be so rude all of the time, you know." Kagome pouts, rubbing at her now sore rear end.

Inuyasha just looks at her blankly before turning and walking away. She watches him for a minute in disbelief. Is he really about to just leave her behind after all of the trouble he gave her before about going off on her own?

"Wait! Where are you going?" She shouts after him.

He ignores her and keeps walking deeper into the forest.

"Inuyasha is such a jerk." Shippo chirps, still hanging on her shoulder.

Kagome hums in agreement, glaring in the direction the dog demon went. He is so unbelievable. All he's done the whole time they've been traveling together is get snippy with Kagome when she tries to talk to him and bully Shippo.

She sighs, "For a guy who went out of his way, by his choice, to save me and help me home, he sure is rude about it."

Shippo nods in agreement, crawling into Kagome's lap and looking up at her.

"Do you think it's my fault?" His voice quivers and his lower lip pouts slightly.

"Of course not, Shippo." She assures him, hugging him tightly to her chest and rubbing his back soothingly, "Inuyasha is just a jerk, plain and simple. Don't you go blaming yourself for his lack of social skills and crotchety personality."

Shippo sniffles a little and looks up at her with big eyes. She smiles down at him reassuringly and he smiles back.

A pile of would being dropped in front of them causes them both to startle and look up. Inuyasha is standing in front of the pile, arranging it neatly and pulling flint from his pocket to light a fire. His eyebrows are draw together in concentration and his mouth is set in what seems to be a permanent scowl.

"We will stay here for the night." He says to nobody in particular. "That leg of yours needs to be checked again, it's starting to smell."

Kagome looks down at her leg, wound barely visible through the hole in her pant leg where the branch pierced it.

"It does?" She asks bewildered.

Shippo looks at her leg in concern as well.

"I thought I smelt something a little stinky but I just figured it was Inuyasha." The little fox pup quips, smirking at Inuyasha's soft growl.

He jumps off of her lap and scurries over to her bag and starts to look through it to find her first aid kit for her.

Inuyasha glares at him for a moment before turning his eyes to Kagome.

"Just check it. Use that medicine stuff you have in your bag, if you have any more, to clean it out. Wouldn't want to lose that leg of yours." He tells her.

Kagome nods, swallowing down the lump in her throat. Her leg, while no longer bleeding, has not gotten any better in almost three days. Kagome's head drops as she realizes that's twice the amount of time he said it would take them to get to just the field.

They had not been able to travel the day she awoke in the cave. She had not eaten and Inuyasha had insisted she still needed to rest for another day before they could travel. He had caught them a wild boar for dinner that night and had made her eat her fill. As big of a jerk as he was, the dog demon was also very caring, even if he was an ass about it.

On their first day of travel, she had insisted on walking as much as she could on her own. That had set them back another day. Her steps had been slow, clumsy, and shaky at best. She was surprised Inuyasha hadn't just left her there to fend for herself with how impatient he had been, cursing and insulting her for the entirety of that second day. So, when they had made camp that night, she was not surprised when he told her he would be carrying her on his back the next day, and he wouldn't take 'no' for an answer.

Kagome looks over to where Inuyasha lay sprawled out on the ground, head propped up in his hand and eyes closed. Despite the leisurely position, his body is tense and his face is drawn into a scowl. She wonders if he ever allows himself to relax or have fun. From what she's seen so far, he's always on edge. She wishes he would smile more, the one time she saw it, even if it was more of a mischievous smirk than an actual smile, it showed off just how handsome he was.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you it was rude to stare?" Inuyasha grumbles, opening one eye to look at her blankly.

She looks away quickly, blushing slightly at getting caught. She looks back up to see he is still looking at her, waiting for a response. Kagome decides to ignore his comment and just take care of her leg, instead.

As embarrassing as it is, and as much as she wishes she could be in private, she wiggles her pants down her legs to just below her wound. It is wrapped with a bandage to protect it from infection, but if Inuyasha said he could smell it, then it might be too late for that.

Gritting her teeth, she slowly starts to unwrap her leg. Shippo approaches with the first aid kit as she finishes unwrapping her leg, holding the kit out to her and smiling brightly. She smiles back at him gratefully and takes the kit from his outstretched hands.

"Thanks, Shippo." She says, patting his head softly.

His smile brightens and he nods his head once before settling down next to her and watching her work.

"Does it still hurt?" He asks softly.

She looks down at her leg, seeing the angry red skin surrounding the oozing wound. Inuyasha had stitched it up as best he could with what little medical supplies she had. The stitching is erratic and clumsy, and there are still places that are mostly open, but it is better than nothing.

The swelling hasn't gone down and her skin is hot to the touch surrounding the laceration. She knows that isn't good, but what has her really worried is the puss oozing out of the openings between the stitches. It is discolored and has a fowl odor.

"A little bit." She lies. "Why don't you go play for a little while? When I'm finished we can have something to eat, okay?"

She smiles down at him.

The small boy smiles and nods, scurrying back over to her bag to get his toys to play with. Once he is turned away, her smile falls, and her brows pinch together in concern.

"You lie to that kid an awful lot." Inuyasha says, suddenly right next to her instead of sprawled out on the other side of the fire.

She jumps slightly at his voice, but doesn't move away from him.

She decides to ignore him again and continues to examine her leg. Shoving her pants down more, she bends her knee and turns her leg so she can see the other side of the wound. It's no better than the front of her leg. She'll need to wash it out again and hope that it doesn't get too bad before she gets home. She would really like to keep her leg.

"I need to wash my leg again." She mutters, looking at the demon seated next to her.

His cheeks are slightly pink, but she figures it's because of the extreme heat they've been stuck with.

"Are there any streams nearby that I could use to bathe in?" She asks.

He looks away from her and grumbles to himself. It's too soft to make out what he's saying, but she swears she hears something about pants and stripping.

"There's one about a quarter mile away that way." He mutters, pointing deeper into the forest.

She nods, reusing the dirty bandage to cover her wound and shuffles her pants back up her legs. Once her pants are back in place, she starts to stand. A sharp pain from her wound has her dropping back to the ground, clutching at her leg in pain.

"Gods damn it." She gasps out, gritting her teeth and breathing heavily through her nose. Her eyes squeeze shut and she rocks back and forth a few times, bowing her head to rest on the bent knee of her uninjured leg. A single tear slips out, not so much from pain as it is from frustration.

A big, clawed hand rubbing her back soothingly snaps her out of her pity party. She straightens her back and scrubs at her eyes, sniffling a few times and blinking rapidly to stop the tears.

"I'm fine." She mumbles to the demon.

"No, you aren't, you idiot." Inuyasha growls, rolling his eyes. "You need help getting there, so shut up and just let me help you."

Gently, trying to avoid irritating the wound too much, Inuyasha slips his arm under her legs and wraps the other around her waist. He lifts her up and holds her tight to his chest. She can feel her face heating up, partly because of the embarrassment of needing help, and partly because she is crushed against the young man's chest.

She looks over to where the young fox demon is playing and calls out to him. "Shippo, we'll be right back, okay?"

Shippo looks over at them and rushes over to where Inuyasha is standing.

"Can I come with you? Please, I don't want to be left alone." He looks down at his feet and frowns.

"Oh Shippo," She coos, "of course you can come. Follow Inuyasha, okay?" She smiles down at the little fox.

She hears Inuyasha huff out a breath and looks up in time to see him rolling his eyes at their interaction. She glares at the side of his face for a moment as Inuyasha begins to walk them towards the stream. She doesn't get what his problem is. He is always so grumpy and huffy whenever she shows Shippo affection. It's odd considering he barely knows either of them.

"What?" She mutters to him, suddenly aware of just how close her face is to his throat.

His skin is slightly tanned and he has faint scars all over the skin she can see. She wonders what he has been through, and what has happened to him in his life to cause so many scars.

Inuyasha tilts his head slightly in her direction and raises an eyebrow at her, before looking back ahead of them. He doesn't say anything though so she assumes that's his way of asking her what she means.

"Why do you always act like that when Shippo and I interact?" She frowns, furrowing her brow in confusion.

Inuyasha doesn't look at her and her question is greeted with silence. She crosses her arms and huffs, tucking her chin close to her chest and glaring at her arms. He is just so rude. She doesn't get him at all. One minute he's kind and helping her and the next he's rude and closed off.

She tilts her head again and looks at the demon's side profile. His eyebrows are pinched and he looks like he's deep in thought. She wonders what he's thinking about, wants to know more about him even though she knows she shouldn't. He is just so interesting to her. Why on earth would a demon fight another demon, and kill it, just to save the life of a human? It just doesn't make any sense. What does he want from her? Is this all some drawn out plan to lure her into a false sense of security only to kill her slowly and start eating her flesh before the life has even left her body?

Kagome shivers at the thought. Despite all of those questions and awful scenarios running through her head, she can't find it in her to be wary of him. He just doesn't seem like the kind of person that would do something like that. She might not have a clue as to why he's helping her, but she highly doubts there are any malicious intentions behind his actions.

"We're here." His deep voice draws her out of her thoughts and she realizes that she's been awkwardly staring at the side of his face for god knows how long, completely spaced out.

Whoops.

"Thanks." She grimaces, trying to wiggle out of his grasp.

He gets the hint and helps set her down gently on her feet. They stand there awkwardly for a moment before Inuyasha turns and starts to walk back towards their camp site.

"I'll give you some privacy. Yell if you need me, okay?" He says over his shoulder, waiting for her to nod before continuing on his way.

She watches him until she can no longer see him, and then turns to the stream and begins to strip off her clothes. She grimaces at the grimy feel of her clothing. Her shirt and bra are easy to remove, but she has to sit on the ground to remove her pants and underwear, and even then its a bit of a hassle to remove them without hurting her leg.

Standing shakily she looks over her shoulder to see Shippo has stripped off his little outfit as well and is making his way into the water. She smiles as he dances around in the shallow water, chasing around a small fish he spots in the clear water.

Bracing herself, she slowly limps to the shoreline, dipping her toes in the water to test the temperature. She shivers at the cool temperature, but starts to wade into the water as quickly as she can to get her bath over with. She isn't totally comfortable being this vulnerable, seeing she is naked and injured, and out in the open without any weapons. Shippo splashing around near her is her only source of comfort. She knows if anything happens, he will run and get Inuyasha.

When the water is up to her hips, she begins to gently massage the skin around the front of her thigh around her crudely sewn up wound. She reaches around to the back of her thigh and does the same to that side as well. Her skin is tender and she grits her teeth at the pain, but she has to rinse them out.

The lack of splashing and giggling has her looking up to check on her young fox-demon companion, to make sure he is okay. He is standing at the bank of the stream, drawing in the sand and humming softly to himself. She can't help but smile at his cuteness. She has grown quite fond of the fox pup during the short time she has known him.

The crunching of rocks on the rocky bank behind her causes her smile to fall and her body to stiffen. Maybe Inuyasha came back to check on them? Or maybe that damn pervert was just lying about giving her 'privacy' and just wants to see her naked. Her face screws up in annoyance and she turns as quickly as her injured leg allows her, ready to destroy her appropriately named 'dog' demon companion.

"You pervert! I should have known better-" Her voice cuts out as she realizes the man she is yelling at is not her silver haired acquaintance.

The man before her is a complete stranger. He has black hair pulled back in a low, short pony tail. He is wearing long sleeved robes that go all the way down to his sandaled feet. What skin she can see is slightly darker than hers and he has one small hoop earring in one ear. His eyes, which are currently wide in shock, are a beautiful violet color.

She lets out a loud shriek and ducks down into the water to cover herself. The man on the opposite bank stumbles backwards and rises his hands up in the air, waving them frantically in front of himself.

"I'm sorry! Please don't scream, ma'am! I did not mean to spy on you!" The stranger shouts, covering his eyes.

Still too startled and embarrassed to move from her crouched position, Kagome looks at the stranger and glares.

"Is that why you were sneaking up on me?" She yells back.

The man looks embarrassed and opens his mouth to reply, when a blur of red and silver pounces onto him.

The growl that erupts from the dog demon has Kagome's hair standing on end. It's so inhuman and dangerous, a clear warning to the strange man to stay still or he will have his life ended.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome exclaims in surprise, standing up and wading slightly towards him, completely forgetting her current state of undress.

The demon, while still pinning the stranger to the ground, looks over his shoulder at her.

"You okay?" He asks.

She nods her head slightly, hugging her arms around herself and bowing her head slightly. Suddenly his eyes glaze over and a light dusting of pink covers his cheeks. He clears his throat and looks back down at the pervert beneath him, tightening his grip around the man's throat so that his nails just barely prick his skin. Kagome tilts her head to the side in confusion at his odd behavior.

"Kagome" Shippo calls from the bank he was playing on, "do you want your clothes washed too? I can wash them for you if you want!" He chirps happily, holding up her panties and shirt.

It is then that she realizes that she is currently buck ass naked and very much exposed to the two young men in front of her on the shore. Her face heats up and her eyes tear up in embarrassment as she ducks back down into the water and crosses her arms over her chest.

"Sure, Shippo." She croaks "Can you bring me my bag and extra clothes first, please?"

The little fox nods and scampers off to their camp to grab her things. While she is waiting she looks back over to the men and sees them in a heated argument. Curiosity getting the better of her, she wades a little closer and strains her ears to listen in.

"Gods damn it, Miroku, what the fuck were you thinking?" The demon says through bared teeth. "I could have killed you, you stupid monk."

Kagome stiffens where she is crouched down, eyes widening slightly. They know each other? The 'monk' in question has the decency to look ashamed.

"I couldn't help myself, Inuyasha." The pervert replies. "You know sexy women are my weakness. I mean," Miroku looks over and smirks at the young woman desperately trying to cover herself up. "That ass was calling to me. Not to mention those breasts. Just the perfect size."

His lecherous gaze causes her to shiver in disgust.

'Ew, what the fuck?' She thinks to herself, screwing her face up in disgust.

Inuyasha clenches his fist and knocks Miroku on the head hard enough for even Kagome to wince in sympathy. Inuyasha is strong, strong enough to take out a magic wielding demon with a few blows. She can't even imagine how much that punch hurt.

"Ouch! What the hell, man! What was that for?" Miroku complains, rubbing at his head.

Inuyasha just scoffs and turns away, grumbling to himself and locking eyes with Kagome. They just stare at each other for a moment. His gaze is piercing and makes her break eye contact first.

"Oh, I see. I apologize, Inuyasha." The monk drawls, bringing himself to his feet. "I did not realize she was your woman."

Kagome and Inuyasha whip their heads in his direction at the same time, Kagome blushing fiercely and Inuyasha looking disturbed.

"I am not his woman!"

"We are not together."

The two yell at the same time, looking at each other quickly before looking back at the monk. The young monk looks taken aback by their outburst and blinks at them blankly for a moment. He looks over at Inuyasha in confusion.

"Then why do you care?" Miroku asks the dog demon.

Inuyasha gives him a nasty look and crosses his arms over his chest. He scoffs and raises his chin in the air.

"I don't give a shit about her, man." He says curtly. "Your lechery just pisses me off. It's gonna get you killed someday you know."

The monk smirks and nods in agreement. Kagome looks between the two in disbelief. What is their problem? Men are so crude.

"Kagome!" A high pitched voice calls out to her.

She looks over her shoulder and smiles at the site of Shippo scampering towards the edge of the water with her bag and fresh clothes."I got your bag for you, Kagome!"

She sighs in relief, ready to get out of the awkward situation she has found herself in.

"Thank you, Shippo!" She calls back, smiling.

She goes to stand again to wade back to shore, but pauses when she realizes that the two men are still behind her and most likely watching her.

"If you two lechers don't mind," she growls without turning to look at them, "I would appreciate if you two would either turn around or go back to our camp so I may change in peace."

There is silence for a moment, so she turns to glare at the two men. They both stiffen at her glare and Inuyasha grabs onto Miroku's robe, dragging the complaining monk back to camp.

When she is confident the two are gone, she stands up and slowly limps through the water back to her clothes. When she reaches her bag she digs through it to find her first aid kit and takes out some bandages and her antibiotic ointment. She dresses in her bra and a fresh shirt and puts on the last pair of clean underwear she has.

She sits on a large rock and spreads some ointment on both sides of her thigh, wincing slightly at the slight sting. When she's sure there is enough, she begins to wrap the thigh with her bandages, tying it securely and digging through her bag for a fresh pair of pants. She groans as she realizes that the only other pants she packed are shorts.While they would make changing her bandages much easier, she doesn't know how comfortable she feels wearing anything that bares skin around either of the two creeps back at camp.

"Oh well." She grumbles to herself.

"Kagome! I finished washing your clothes. Where should I put them?" Shippo asks hopping into her lap and trying to avoid her injury.

"We can take them back to camp and set them by the fire so they can dry." She says to the young fox.

He smiles up at her and goes over to where he placed Kagome's clothes.

Kagome pushes off the rock and grabs her bag off the ground, looking down at Shippo and reaching her hand out to take her clothes from him. He hands them over and then grabs her hand with a smile after she drapes her clothes over her other arm.

The two make their way back to the camp slowly and spot the two men glaring at each other from across the fire in some kind of silent argument. Shippo seems to not sense the tension, and scampers over to where his toys are scattered across the ground near the fire.

Kagome stands to the side, staring curiously at the two men before her. Miroku notices her first and stands from his seated position. He approaches her and she takes a step back, cautious of the perverted man. Miroku notices her unease and pauses in his steps.

"I apologize for my actions earlier." He says genuinely. "I meant no harm in my actions, although I know I stepped over the line. I shouldn't have spied on you."

Kagome eyes him wearily for a moment before nodding her head. He doesn't seem like a bad guy even if he is a big pervert. She'll just have to keep an eye on him. She smiles at him sweetly.

"Just don't let it happen again and we're good." She says.

"Cross my heart." He says, drawing an x over his heart with his index finger.

Inuyasha scoffs and rolls his eyes at the interaction. Kagome looks over to him and narrows her eyes.

"So how do you two know each other?" She asks them, slowly lowering herself to the ground.

"Inuyasha and I go way back." Miroku says, looking over at an unimpressed Inuyasha. "He saved my life. I am from a nomadic group. We suffered a demonic attack and if it weren't for Inuyasha, I'd probably be dead with the rest of my people. He saved my life"

"Oh, don't get all sentimental on me now, Miroku." Inuyasha sneers. "That demon was in my way so I took him out. It just so happens that it was the same demon attacking you."

Miroku and Kagome both roll their eyes at Inuyasha's blatant lie. He will probably never admit to a good deed.

"So you travel alone now?" Kagome asks Miroku.

"Mostly," He shrugs. "I run into Inuyasha every now and then."

Miroku smirks at the demon. Inuyasha just rolls his eyes again.

"Anyways," Miroku continues, "I have decided that I will join you on your journey to wherever you are going. A beautiful young lady like yourself should not be traveling all alone with demons, of all creatures. So I shall come along to keep you safe.

Shippo looks up from his toys, "Hey!" He shouts in offense, "I would never hurt Kagome!"

Inuyasha jerks up in his seat and glares at the monk in front of him.

"No." Inuyasha growls.

Shippo walks over to Kagome and curls into her side, glaring at the monk.

"I don't trust this guy, Kagome. He did watch you in the bath." Shippo whispers loudly.

Kagome stares at the monk for a few seconds, looking him over and coming to a decision.

"You can come with us." She finally says.

Inuyasha jerks his head in her direction and glares at her. He stands up and storms into the woods without another word.

The monk smiles and opens his mouth to respond.

"However," She cuts him off. "If you give me even the slightest of reasons to distrust you, you are gone."

She gives the monk a firm look.

The monk smiles and nods.

"You have my word."

* * *

**Hey there!**

**Sorry for such a late update. I had gone on vacation and then got busy with work. I am posting this now and hope to put up another one soon. I am in Italy right now so I'm not sure when i'll have the time to write. **

**Thank you so much for reading my story! I hope you liked the chapter. If you want, comment and let me know what you liked or didn't like.**

**See you soon!**

**-Aislyn **

**Edit(1/21/2020)**

**Hey guys,**

**I edited a few things in this chapter. It's nothing major, mostly grammar issues. I hope you are enjoying the story! **

**Thanks for reading! **

**~Aislyn**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Twigs snap under her feet and branches slap against her skin, cutting up her face and arms, as she races through the forest. The acrid scent of smoke still chokes the air as she tries to escape the disaster she left behind.

It is mid-afternoon, and yet the darkness surrounding her has her stumbling blindly, hoping she is heading the right way and that nobody is following. One hand clutches tightly around the pendant of her necklace. She won't let him have it. Her family has fought much too hard to keep it safe for her to lose it now.

A twig catches her foot, and she trips, landing hard on her arm. The fall knocks the wind out of her.

"Lucy!" A shrill voice calls out, "Come on! We have to keep going!"

Lucy looks up from the ground, gritting her teeth and glaring at the little blue sprite fluttering just ahead of her. Blowing a few strands of blonde hair out of her face, she pushes herself back up onto her feet.

"Stupid cat." She mutters to herself as she resumes running.

The sprite ignores her and keeps flying next to her, looking over his shoulder every now and then. She can tell he is just as nervous as she is.

The sky should not be so dark. Lucy coughs and gags on the smoke filling the air around them. If they can get just a little farther, they'll be okay. She pushes her legs harder, willing herself to go faster. Just up ahead, the forest begins to lighten and become clearer. It's the light at the end of this terrifyingly dark tunnel.

With each step forward, the air gets more comfortable to breathe. The smoke slowly dissipates, and the forest around Lucy becomes clearer.

"We're almost there!" The sprite shouts.

Lucy nods and keeps pushing forward, eyes focussed solely on the forest up ahead. As she runs, her mind wanders back to the destruction that nearly took her life and most definitely took the lives of all of her family and friends. Happy, her blue sprite companion, is the only other survivor. The Heartfilia estate that had remained solid through centuries is now completely destroyed, nothing left but rubble and dust on land that once held a magnificent manor.

Tears cloud her vision as she thinks of all the people she was unable to save. Her father sent her away after the first explosion, demanding she and Happy take the Jewel and flee. They had barely made it into the tree line when her childhood home crumpled in on itself, trapping everyone inside and sealing their fates.

Her foot catches on another branch, pulling the ligaments and tendons uncomfortably, but she manages to steady herself before she falls. Just a little farther.

"Happy," she pants, "how much farther to the perimeter wall?"

The blue sprite flies higher into the air for a few seconds and then returns to her side.

"Maybe half a mile?" He replies. Lucy's shoulders slump slightly in relief. They're almost there.

The only problem is, she still hasn't even figured out how she's going to get over the damn wall, let alone what she's going to do if one of the demon king's lackeys are there.

Up ahead, the trees begin to clear, the outline of the wall starting to appear.

"Almost there." She says to herself.

She pushes her legs a little harder, trying to get to the wall as quickly as possible.

"We made it!" Happy shouts over the wind whipping at both of their faces.

They slow to a halt as they reach the wall. Lucy looks around her, checking for enemies. When she realizes she is safe, Lucy looks up at the wall and puzzles over how she's going to get over.

"This damn wall must be at least 20 feet tall." She says under her breath, "How am I going to get over this thing?"

Happy looks at her thoughtfully for a moment.

"You know," he says, "people will think you're crazy if you keep talking to yourself like that."

Happy covers his mouth with a paw as he chuckles, ducking out of her reach when she swipes at him. Lucy glares at the sprite for a moment before turning her focus back to the wall.

"Stupid cat." She mumbles.

"I could always fly you over the wall." Happy says nonchalantly.

Lucy looks at him, skeptically for a moment before nodding.

"Are you sure you can handle my weight?" She asks.

Happy looks her up and down with a frown on his face.

"Well, you are pretty heavy," He chuckles and avoids another swat of her hand, "but I think I can handle it."

"Okay," Lucy says apprehensively, "as long as you are sure."

Happy nods and grabs the back of Lucy's shirt with his paws. Lucy gasps as she is lifted off of the ground, soaring towards the top of the wall. When they clear the top of the wall, Lucy cannot help but look over her shoulder and see what is left of her home. She's not surprised when all she can see is smoke rising into the air where the Heartfilia estate once stood.

Tears fill her eyes again as they begin their descent down the wall on the other side. Her view of the destruction is blocked by the dull gray of the stone wall. She turns her gaze to the forest floor below, head bowed in sorrow. All of her loved ones are gone. A tear streaks down her face at that thought.

The face of the man responsible for this, the 'demon king' as he likes to call himself, flashes through her mind and her hands ball into fists. She will get her revenge. That dirty demon will pay for what he has done to her family.

Happy gently sets Lucy down on the ground with an overly exaggerated grunt.

"Gods, Lucy, have you gotten heavier?" He groans, shaking his arms out and rolling his shoulders.

Lucy just rolls her eyes at his antics. Looking around, the terrain is much of the same as it was on the other side of the wall. Dense forest surrounds them on all sides. Not knowing which direction to head in, she decides to just get as far away from the wall as possible. They must distance themselves from this place. The farther the Jewel is from that monster, the better.

Lucy holds onto the pendant around her neck tightly. Guarding the Sacred Jewel is both an honor and a curse. Her family has guarded this magnificent treasure for centuries from those who would abuse its power. The women of her family, herself included, have been gifted with intense spiritual and celestial powers to guard the Jewel.

Lucy started training at a young age to master her powers so that she may not experience the same fate as her mother and grandmother. Both women were slain by the demon king in attempts to steal the Sacred Jewel. She refuses to meet that same awful fate. She refuses to die at his hands.

The hum of power at her wrist comforts her and calms her rage, helping her focus on her surroundings as she runs. Her charms jingle around her bracelet with each step, reminding her that she is never really alone, that she has friends with her at all times. She smiles to herself as she remembers this.

Lucy is pulled from her thoughts when the wall behind her explodes into an enormous inferno. Fireballs and debris fall around her and knock her to the ground from the force of the blast. Her ears are ringing and pieces of stone slice at her skin.

He's found her.

Natsu's body tenses and his head rises slowly from where he is examining the forest floor.

"You heard that, too?" Kikyo whispers from a few feet away.

Natsu nods and rises slowly to a standing position. Kikyo does the same, moving closer to Natsu's side as they strain to listen for anything else.

"It came from across the field." He mumbles, making his way in that direction, Kikyo following closely behind.

He stops short, eyes widening slightly as another loud boom sounds followed by a scream. Distinctly female in tone.

"Kagome…?" Kikyo breathes.

"Kikyo wait-" Before Natsu can stop her, Kikyo races for the field, disappearing into the tall grasses. Natsu grumbles angrily to himself as he chases after her.

Erza will kill him if he doesn't tell her where he is going, especially if it is off to battle a demon. She would probably be even more furious, however, if he just allowed Kikyo to charge off by herself and get herself killed because of it.

Running at full speed and trying to fish his flare gun out of his bag at the same time proves difficult, but he manages. Finding the right color flare, Natsu raises the weapon in the air and fires off a shot. At least this way, Erza can't kill him later for not telling her where he went. He just hopes she and Gray see the damn thing.

Natsu shoves the flare gun back in his bag and zips it up. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he increases his speed. He catches a flash of black hair just up ahead and pushes himself harder to try and catch up to her.

"Kikyo!" Natsu calls out to her, bursting out of the maze of tall grasses just behind her. When he reaches her, Natsu grabs Kikyo's wrist and pulls her back to his side.

Kikyo whirls around, shooting him a look of pure rage and yanking her arm out of his grasp.

"What the hell are you doing?" She seethes.

"What the hell am I doing?" He asks in bewilderment, "What the hell are you doing?!" He snaps back.

"Saving my sister," Kikyo says through her teeth, glare intensifying slightly.

"You don't even know if it's her." He reasons with her, "You can't just run blindly into a fight without knowing if it's even her."

Kikyo frowns down at the ground, crossing her arms over her chest. Her actions remind him of a pouting toddler, something he would never have expected to see from her of all people.

Natsu takes a step towards her, placing his hand on her shoulder gently. She begrudgingly meets his eyes, still obviously pissed but willing to hear him out.

"I know you want to find your sister." He says lowly, squeezing her shoulder once before letting his hand fall to his side. "Believe me when I say I want to find her too, but lets at least be prepared for whatever we might find, okay?" He asks.

Kikyo swallows hard and looks back down at her feet. He can tell she's trying to stay strong despite the harrowing situation, but he knows just how upset this whole ordeal is making her. She barely sleeps or eats, always on edge and ready to spring into action. All of that stress can't be good for her.

Another explosion causes both of them to tense. Natsu and Kikyo share a look, both readying their weapons and rushing towards the source of all the commotion.

They smell the smoke before they see it, and there is a lot of it. It chokes the air, making it hard to breathe and stinging his eyes, but Natsu continues forward.

A flying blue ball of fur suddenly collides hard with Natsu, knocking him back a few steps. Kikyo pauses for a moment to make sure he is okay, and Natsu nods at her, telling her to keep going. Natsu is about to head after her when a weak tug at his pant leg stops him short.

"Please," a small voice croaks, "Please save her! Please save Lucy!" It begs.

Natsu looks down in surprise as the blue ball of fur speaks to him. Kneeling to the ground warily, Natsu gets a better look at the creature that barreled into him. It's a blue…cat?

The 'cat' - a freaking blue, talking cat - cries as he clutches tighter to the fabric of Natsu's pants.

"Please!" It cries again, tears running down its face.

Natsu sighs, hoping he doesn't grow to regret what he is about to do, before reaching out a hand and gently prying the paw off of his pants, scooping the little cat into his arms. It is weak and injured, but not in as bad a shape as he could be.

"Okay, don't worry. My friend and I will help her." He promises. "What's your name, little buddy?" He asks, making his way into the forest in the same direction Kikyo went.

The small cat shifts in his arms to get more comfortable.

"Happy," the cat murmurs. "My name is Happy."

Natsu quirks a brow at the odd name but decides not to make a comment.

"Nice to meet you, Happy." He says as sincerely as possible. "Now, which direction is this friend of yours in that needs help?" He asks.

Happy cries out in joy before lurching out of Natsu's arms, wings appearing out of nowhere as he flies ahead of the pink-haired man.

"This way!" Happy calls over his shoulder, pointing deeper into the forest where the smoke becomes darker and more ominous.

Natsu sighs and follows after the cat, praying he isn't falling into a trap.

"Lucy!" The little blue cat calls out desperately. "Lucy!"

Natsu surveys his surroundings, trying to spot a girl through the thick smoke. He has no such luck.

Just as he is about to ask if Happy is sure that he's heading in the right direction, a bright glow causes him to stop short and cover his eyes. The pulse of power that accompanies the light causes his skin to prickle. Just as fast as it appeared, the light dims and then disappears as if it were never there.

"Over here!" The cat shrieks.

Natsu shakes his head, still confused about what just happened, and follows Happy once again.

He rushes to where the cat is hovering just above the ground and stops by his side. The little cat raises his paw and points just ahead of them.

Natsu peers into the decimated landscape ahead of him. Flashes of light, similar to the one from before, light up the battle scene sporadically.

A flash of golden hair and the glint of armor catches his eyes, and he gapes in awe at the woman before him. He can't see her face in the darkness, but her hair stands out, almost as if it were glowing. She is brandishing a sword that seems to be made entirely of light and moving gracefully to dodge the attacks coming her way. Her body is covered in an almost silvery/purple-colored armor. The way she is fighting screams experience, but he can tell she is getting tired. The attacks are being launched at her relentlessly and with little pause. As good of a fighter, as she seems to be, he knows that she will run out of stamina soon and then it will be over. He has to help her. He just needs to wait for the right opening.

"Lucy!" Happy calls out again, gaining the girl's attention and distracting her from her fight.

"Shit." Natsu grunts as he leaps out of the burning tree line surrounding the battle.

He barely makes it in time to tackle the girl to the ground before another devastating attack explodes, where the two were just seconds before.

They both grunt as they hit the ground hard, Natsu rolling to the side at the last minute, so he doesn't land on top of her. She is breathing hard, out of breath, and clutching her ribs. She must be hurt, he realizes.

"Stay down, I'll take it from here." He says to her softly, holding a hand out to prevent her from getting back up.

He still can't see her face, the strange armor blocking it from view, but he can see her eyes. Large, chestnut eyes stare back at him in bewilderment. He nods at her once before jumping up and pulling out his enchanted weapon. At first glance, one would think it was just a staff. The long, dull, dark iron rod is almost as tall as Natsu and not nearly as threatening as most weapons should be. But as Natsu twirls the pole in front of him a few times with practiced ease, a blade sparks into existence at the very top. It is no ordinary blade, though. The blade that decorates Natsu's weapon is entirely made of fire. The flame spreads and seems to solidify into a deadly razor. The flames from the scythe light up the area around them.

He finally catches sight of the enemy in the shadows and aims an attack straight for them. He spins the scythe overhead and sweeps it in a wide arc at his opponent. The area where the dark figure once stood bursts into flame, but the attacker is incredibly fast, body moving through the shadows as if he were one with them.

Before Natsu has time to react, a fist hits his side, knocking him to the ground hard. He wheezes as the air is knocked from his lungs, but recovers quickly, launching back to his feet and charging the enemy once more.

Shadowy, serpent-like tendrils slither across the ground, trying to grab hold of him to throw him off balance. What feels like hands, keep reaching out from below him, grabbing for his legs.

Natsu is relatively sure that he knows what this demon's power is, but he has no idea how to defeat it. He dodges another shadow spear, that attempts to run him through, and aims another stream of fire into the shadows.

He needs to create a lot of light, eliminating all shadows so that his enemy can't use them to his advantage. He could always just light everything on fire, something he quite enjoys doing ordinarily, but he also doesn't want to burn down the entire forest.

He blocks a shadow aimed for his head with the handle of his scythe and rolls off to the side. Natsu raises his weapon, prepared to defend himself from another blow, when one lands off to his right, too far away to be aimed at him.

He curses himself when he realizes that he left the girl completely vulnerable by moving away from her. He had thought that by moving away, it would keep her safe and redirect the demon's attention onto him, giving her enough time to escape. Apparently, he was mistaken. This demon is dead set upon killing the girl in the odd armor.

Natsu releases a breath he didn't realize he was holding when the dust clears, revealing the young woman holding her glowing sword in front of her to protect herself from the attack.

She dives out of the way of another attack, and he has to admire her agility. She ducks under another shadowed fist, and, almost sensing his eyes on her, shoots him a disgruntled look.

"You just gonna stand there with that stupid look on your face all day, or are you going to help?" She grunts, blocking another shadowed fist. The force of the blow pushes her back a few feet, but she manages to keep her balance.

Her words snap him out of his trance, and he shakes his head, blinking a few times, before racing in her direction, parrying blows and dodging explosions as he goes. When he finally reaches her, he is slightly out of breath. She spares him a quick glance before swinging her sword right at him. He ducks out of the way, barely missing the sharp edge and rolls to the side.

"What the fuck was that for!" He yells at her, eyes wide in shock.

"You're welcome." Is all she says in response before launching herself in the direction of the shadow demon, bringing her sword down in a wide arc that causes light to erupt all around them.

Natsu turns around to see the body of a rather fat demon, half out of the ground, and split right down the middle. He hadn't even realized that there was more than one demon. That's where the invisible, low blows must have been coming from. The beast could melt into his surroundings and teleport.

A piercing cry sounds throughout the clearing, and he winces at how loud the noise is. He covers his sensitive ears and raises a hand to block the light. Squinting into it, he watches in awe as the shadow demon starts to dissolve right in front of his eyes.

He looks over to where the girl is standing, amazed that she could produce that much power. He hasn't witnessed power like her's before. It is similar to Kikyo and Kagome's powers, but also different.

When the light fades, leaving nothing but a rapidly dissolving corpse in its wake, the girl's armor disappears as if it were made of air, leaving her in tattered clothing. She stumbles slightly before crumpling to the ground in a dead faint.

"Lucy!" The blue cat shouts and flies out of his hiding place. He lands on her chest and presses his ear to it, freezing for a moment before sagging in relief. She must still be alive, then.

Natsu walks over, spinning his scythe to disarm the flaming steel, and crouches down next to the girl's body.

"Is she okay?" He asks, still slightly apprehensive of the duo in front of him.

He's still a little miffed that she just swung her sword at him like that. She could have at least warned him.

The blue cat looks up from the girl's face, giving Natsu a tight smile that doesn't reach his eyes.

"Aye," The cat says quietly, "She just used up a lot of spiritual power. She will probably be unconscious for a while."

The small cat looks around nervously. Natsu understands why he's worried. That fight was loud and is bound to attract other demons in the area. With this girl out of commission, they are definitely in a lot of danger.

As if proving his thoughts right, a one-eyed serpentine demon bursts through the trees, making its way straight for the girl.

"Dammit," Natsu curses as he readies his scythe and launches himself at the beast.

The blade of fire aids him as he slices through the demon, burning its body to ashes.

Natsu makes it to the girl and lifts her into his arms. They have to get out of here, now.

He stops short as he takes a look around them. They are completely surrounded on all sides. Happy perches himself on top of Natsu's head, surprising the man by how light he is, and trembles nervously.

"What do we do now?" The small cat whines.

Natsu grinds his teeth in frustration. He could fight them, he knows he's more than capable of taking on one of these small fries. But that would also mean that he would have to put Lucy down, and he can't do that. There are too many for him to fight off and guard her body at the same time. They're trapped.

Suddenly, a bright purple light streaks across the field, burying itself in the chest of a demon that had made a move to attack him. Natsu sighs in relief.

"Took you long enough, Kikyo!" He shouts into the tree line. "Were you taking a nap or something?"

Said woman makes her way out into the clearing, arrow nocked and aimed at another demon. She fires, and the purple arrow dissolves the beast on contact.

She gives Natsu an unimpressed look before taking note of the girl in his arms and the blue cat hanging off his head.

"Friends of yours?" She asks, motioning at the newcomers with her head as she fires another arrow without even looking at her target. She makes the shot perfectly.

Natsu shrugs, and together the two of them begin to make their way towards the tree line, Kikyo taking out any demon stupid enough to get too close.

When they make it back into the forest, they run for the field. Lucy's small frame does not hinder Natsu's ability to run at all, the girl is surprisingly light.

Just as they reach the field, Erza and Gray burst out of the grass, scaring the life out of Natsu, almost causing him to drop Lucy, and causing Kikyo to take aim at them.

"Whoa!" Gray cries, raising his hands up in front of himself.

Erza gives them a look that is a cross between annoyance and concern. Kikyo lowers her bow as soon as she realizes who she's aiming at.

"Are you guys all right?" Erza asks, looking between the two of them before resting her gaze on the girl in Natsu's arms. "Who is she?"

Natsu opens his mouth to answer the scary redhead but is beaten to the punch by the blue cat now floating next to him, white wings protruding from his back.

"This is Lucy. Pinky saved her from the demons!" Happy says, with a bright smile. Natsu sighs and rolls his eyes. He supposes he must be 'Pinky.'

"A demon?" Erza draws her sword and points it at the flying cat.

Gray is still standing there with a stupid look on his face, mouth hanging open in shock.

"He's not a demon, Erza," Kikyo says pensively, brows drawn together in thought.

"How can you be sure?" Erza demands, "He sure looks like one." She nudges her sword closer to the blue cat, and Happy looks both terrified and extremely annoyed.

"I am not a demon." The cat says, thoroughly offended. "I am a sprite."

Erza ignores the cat and looks at Kikyo for an answer. Kikyo walks towards Happy slowly. When she reaches him, she hesitantly reaches out and strokes his wings, a slight gasp leaving both her and Happy's lips.

"His aura is different, but not demonic. He is a being of light." Kikyo surmises.

Erza lowers her sword but doesn't relax her stance. "We should head back to camp, it's not safe here." She commands.

Natsu knows she will want a full explanation when they get back and dreads the pounding she's going to give him for running off without them. He can already feel the bruises.

**Sorry for such a late update! I had to write this sporadically because I kept getting writers block and changing my mind.**

**I hope you enjoy this Chapter! Thanks again for reading!**

**~Aislyn**

**Edit(1/21/2020) **

**Hey everyone, I edited this chapter and attempted to fix any incorrect grammar. I also changed a few things(Natsu's sword is now a scythe). Sorry for taking so long to update. I am working on chapter 6 right now, so hopefully that won't take me too long to finish! **

**Thanks for reading! **

**~Aislyn**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

The moon was nothing but a sliver in the sky, making the night darker than usual. It would be the New Moon either tomorrow or the day after.

Kikyo sighs, leaning her head against the bark of the tree she is leaning on. She stares at the sky, trying to find figures in the stars to avoid thinking about what the New Moon brings. She has not thought about it for so long, so why is she thinking about it now? Is it because Kagome is still missing? Because they are so close to her old home?

Kikyo sighs again and runs her hands through her hair, bowing her head to rest on her bent knees. It's very late, and she needs to get some rest. The only problem is that she hasn't been able to get more than an hour of sleep at a time with how stressed out she is. And the nightmares are back too.

The crunching of earth beneath someone's feet draws her attention, but she doesn't move her head from its bowed position or open her eyes. She recognizes these swaggered footfalls.

"Hey," a familiar masculine voice greets her.

Kikyo hums in acknowledgment but remains in the same position.

Her companion grunts slightly as he sits next to her, shuffling until he finds a comfortable position.

"The moon is almost fully gone," the man notes, humming in thought. "It's gonna make tracking at night a bitch."

Kikyo looks over at the dark-haired man sitting next to her. Gray sits with his back against the tree, legs bent with his arms resting loosely on his knees. He rests his head on the tree, leaning it back to get a better look at the sky.

He looks over to her when he senses her stare. Gray gives her his typical smirk, which she assumes he believes to be a smile, and then looks back up at the sky. The light breeze rustles his raven hair, barely visible in the darkness of the night.

"Erza was worried you went to look for Kagome on your own," He says casually, "so I told her I would come find you to make sure you hadn't."

Kikyo scoffs at his words. Of course, he needed to give her an excuse as to why he came to find her. Gray never seems to be able to own up to having emotions or worrying for his friends. Blaming Erza always appears to be his go-to as well because nobody dares to question her.

Gray chuckles at her scoff and rolls his head to the side to look at her again.

"Not that I could stop you if you really wanted to leave." He shrugs, smirking at her in amusement.

"No, you couldn't." She replies.

They fall into a comfortable silence, both looking at the stars and getting lost in their own thoughts.

Kikyo's mind lapses back to her thoughts from before Gray showed up. Flashes of silver and gold overwhelm her memories.

"You okay?" Gray asks her, voice concerned.

Kikyo looks over to him and notices him looking at her hands. His hand hovers over hers as if to grab it. Her knuckles are white with how hard she is clenching them, nails biting at the skin of her palms. She relaxes her hands and pulls them into her lap, away from Gray's line of sight.

"I am fine." She says cooly and without emotion.

Gray stares at her blankly for a few seconds and then shrugs his shoulders.

"Suit yourself." He murmurs, leaning his head back against the tree and closing his eyes.

It remains quiet for a few more seconds, and then Gray starts to fidget.

"Damn," he groans, "I wish I had a cigarette."

Kikyo scoffs, "Smoking is a dirty habit."

Gray gives her an unamused look.

"You sound like Erza." He grumbles, tapping his foot repeatedly.

Kikyo raises a brow at his antics, and his whole body freezes. He gives her a sheepish grin and rubs the back of his head in embarrassment.

"Sorry," He mutters.

Kikyo just shakes her head. Why is he even here? All he is accomplishing is pissing her off.

"You know," she says, looking at him thoughtfully, "It is funny that you and Natsu fight so much. You two are rather similar, so I would have assumed you would get along better."

Gray looks at her in horror, floundering his arms and twitching in annoyance.

"W-what?! We are nothing alike!" He shouts, seeming extremely offended by her words.

Kikyo chuckles at his outrage.

"Whatever you say…" she smiles.

Gray grumbles to himself and leans his back against the tree, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting his bottom lip.

Kikyo shakes her head at his antics. As annoying as the boys can be, she has to admit they are helpful. Even now, although she wished to be alone, Gray saved her from her depressing thoughts of the past.

Kikyo frowns at that thought, remembering why she left the group to be alone in the first place. She looks back up at the tiny silver sliver of the moon surrounded by millions of stars. Memories of her youth and once happy times now tinged with sorrow flood her mind until she is lost to her thoughts.

"I never thought that a phase of the moon would bring about such negative emotions." She says to herself quietly.

"What do you mean?" Gray asks.

Kikyo's body tenses, she forgot he was still there. She looks down at her hands and debates whether telling him would be worth it.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't wanna." Gray murmurs.

Kikyo looks over to Gray and gives him a tight smile, shaking her head.

"It was a long time ago," She begins quietly, "back when Kagome, Sota, and I lived in our home village.

"It was attacked by demons, right?" Gray inquires.

Kikyo nods her head, smiling bitterly at the memory.

"We were attacked without warning or reason. We had lived in peace for so many years before then." She sighs.

"How is that possible? Weren't you guys in the middle of demon territory?" Gray asks, scrunching his eyebrows in confusion.

"We were indeed in the middle of demon territory," Kikyo confirms, "but my village was always protected by strong priestesses. No demon was ever foolish enough to attempt to attack our village."

Kikyo frowns, "My mother, Midoriko, was beautiful and powerful. She protected our village with the help of Kaede and a few other lesser priestesses for many years. My father and a few other men accompanied them, but they had no spiritual powers. They were only warriors. But even without spiritual powers, my father was a gifted warrior who fought valiantly alongside my mother.

"When I was born, her priorities changed a bit. She had to take care of me, and so Kaede took on most of the responsibility of protecting the village. She started to take on her priestess responsibilities again when I was a toddler. But then she became pregnant with Kagome and had to step back once more.

"But Kaede was getting older, and mother needed to return to her duties. Kaede took over watching us when she went back to guarding our village with our father.

"For eight long years, my mother protected us from powerful demon and human enemies alike." Kikyo pauses for a moment and bites her lower lip.

"I was twelve years old," she rasps, throat tight, "mother didn't know she was pregnant with Sota. She thought she had reached the end of her fertility. She was fighting a demon hoard that had threatened our village when her water broke."

Gray puts his hand on Kikyo's shoulder, squeezing it in reassurance and giving her a tight smile.

"It's okay, you don't have to tell me if it's too hard," Gray says softly.

Kikyo shakes her head and smiles, patting the hand he has placed on her shoulder.

"It is okay," she murmurs, "It was a long time ago."

"Just because it happened a long time ago doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt." Gray reasons, removing his hand and placing it back by his side, waiting for her to continue.

Kikyo nods and continues, "My father was there with her and saw her fall during the battle. He ran to her side, thinking she had been struck down, but when he realized what was actually happening, he panicked. My mother continued to try to fight even while in labor." Kikyo chuckles, rolling her eyes up to the sky.

"She sure sounds like one tough lady." Gray says, "I see where you and Kagome get your tenacity from."

"My mother was mighty, but she was also very stubborn." Kikyo responds, "If she had stopped fighting, she might have lived.

"My father returned from battle with my mother in his arms. They had defeated the demons, but that victory had come at a great cost. My mother exhausted herself both because of being in labor and by using up all of her magic.

"She used up the rest of her energy giving birth to Sota. Her heart couldn't take the stress, and she took her last breaths as Sota took his first. He never got to meet our mother." Kikyo frowns at her hands.

"Like I said before, I was twelve at the time, so with help from Kaede, I raised Kagome and Sota. It was tough for me to take on that responsibility and also deal with my mother's death at the same time. Not only that, but my powers had developed early, so I was already undergoing rigorous training to become a priestess. My powers were still feeble when my mother died, but when I turned thirteen, they grew in strength exponentially. I was pulled away from my siblings to train every single day. I barely saw Sota or Kagome, and because of my absence, the responsibility to take care of Sota fell partially to Kagome whenever Kaede was not around."

Kikyo grimaces at this part of her memory. Kagome had been so young, and she had left her all alone. She sighs, realizing she is coming to the main reason for her story.

"I began sneaking off during my afternoon breaks to a field just outside the village. I never went too far for fear of a demon attack, but I was far enough away that I felt at peace.

"One day when I was walking to the field, I stumbled upon a young boy who seemed to be unconscious in my usual resting place. At first glance, he appeared human, but when I looked closer, that's when I saw them."

Gray sits silently, giving Kikyo his undivided attention.

"They were small, but he had two small dog ears on the top of his head. I remember being amazed by them and having the strangest urge to touch them." Kikyo chuckles at the memory.

"I would have probably touched them too if he hadn't woken up and panicked. He was obviously exhausted and seemed to have missed quite a few meals with how weak he was. He barely had the strength to move away from me, and the little growl he gave was pathetic.

"I had brought a small lunch with me that day to enjoy on my own, but he looked like he needed it much more. He obviously didn't trust me, and I was wary of him, but I knew he was too young to be dangerous and that he was far too weak to hurt me. He was terrified, especially when I reached into my bag to get the food." Kikyo frowns at the fear she had seen in those beautiful gold eyes, "In the end, I just ended up leaving the whole bag there and returned to my lessons early.

"The next day I was shocked to see the boy in the same spot. He hadn't touched the bag of food from the day before, either. He growled at me when I approached, and so I removed the bag of food, left a new one, and returned back to my training. This continued for a week. I would go to my spot, he would be there and growl at me, I would leave food, he wouldn't eat it, and I would still replace it every day in hopes he would. Finally, I decided enough was enough. He looked worse and worse every single day and would probably die soon. So I packed extra food and water and traveled back to the field.

"When I got there, I thought he was dead. He was barely breathing, and he was deathly pale. I panicked, I ran to him and dragged him to a nearby shaded area where I tried to rouse him. He was terribly weak, but he still struggled to get away from me. He still didn't trust me. Luckily for me, he was too weak to fight me, and I was able to force him to eat and drink small amounts of what I had brought for us."

Kikyo scoffs and clasps her hands together, "I don't know why I cared so much for a child I did not know, especially considering he was a demon."

"Did he survive?" Gray asks, fully enraptured in Kikyo's tale.

Kikyo nods solemnly, "Yes, he survived. I nursed him back to health, and he slowly began to trust me as the days went on. I was expecting him to leave when he gained his strength back, but he didn't. Every day I would go to the field, and every day he would be there, waiting for me. We would sit in silence a lot of the time, at first, but as time went on, he slowly started to open up to me."

Kikyo smiles to herself, "I will never forget the first time he spoke to me. I was so used to the silence between us that his voice startled me. He told me his name was Inuyasha, and slowly but surely we began to learn more about each other. I found out he was two years younger than me, that he was all alone because both of his parents had died, and, most surprisingly, that he was a half-demon."

Gray's startled gasp pulls Kikyo from her story-telling. He looks disturbed.

"A half-demon? How is that even possible?" He asks in disbelief, "Did his demon parent rape his human parent or something?"

Kikyo shakes her head in the negative, causing Gray to become even more confused.

"Inuyasha's mother told him that she and his father were in love and that he was a very noble demon who fought to protect them. Apparently, his father died protecting Inuyasha and his mother when Inuyasha was an infant." Kikyo states.

"The demon must have bewitched her or something." Gray insists.

Kikyo shakes her head again, "No, his father was not that kind of demon. He was a dog-demon and apparently was quite powerful. He was a greater demon, so he resembled a human man."

Gray shakes his head in disbelief.

"A half-demon…" He repeats in disbelief.

Kikyo nods her head in agreement as to how unbelievable it sounds. She didn't believe the demon boy when he told her the first time, either.

"Inuyasha and I continued to meet every single day for five years." Kikyo remembers, "He became a very close friend to me during that time, and I could tell that I became quite special to him as well. He even trusted me with his greatest secret of all."

Kikyo looks to the tiny sliver of the moon and smiles bitterly. It almost feels as if she is betraying Inuyasha's trust by telling someone about his secret. Kikyo frowns at that thought and clenches her fists. That monster does not deserve her sympathy. He may have been special to her at one point in her life, but he means nothing to her now.

"Because Inuyasha was a half-demon, he had times of weakness every month where his demonic powers left him. Apparently, every half-demon suffers from this, although there are very few, and Inuyasha had only met one other half-demon in his short life." Kikyo takes a deep breath before continuing, "On the night of the New Moon, Inuyasha lost his demonic powers and became human."

Gray's mouth falls open in shock. Kikyo laughs inwardly at his expression, but her face remains an emotionless mask.

"So, you're telling me that not only are there half-demons, but said half-demons have a period of weakness when they turn…human?!" Gray exclaims.

Kikyo nods and gives Gray time to digest the information.

"Wow," is all Gray says, still in shock.

"He did not tell me his secret for four of the five years I knew him," Kikyo continues, "but after he told me I spent every single night of the New Moon by his side. I did not want him to be alone."

"Did Kagome know Inuyasha as well?" Gray inquires.

Kikyo frowns and shakes her head, "No, I never told anyone about Inuyasha or our friendship. I am a priestess, and he was a demon. It was my responsibility to protect my people from demons and exterminate any that got near the village. If I had told anyone of Inuyasha's existence, they would have hunted him down and killed him. It is what I was supposed to do; what I should have done. But I was too kind back then and far too trusting."

Gray nods in understanding.

"I guess that makes sense." He murmurs, "But, if I may ask, why didn't you just kill him from the start? I mean, he was a demon."

"He might have been a demon, but I never sensed evil from him. Inuyasha was far too kind and young to warrant a death sentence." Kikyo shakes her head, "I should have paid more attention, however, to how he began to act as he got older."

"He became evil." Gray guesses.

Kikyo scoffs, "I must have been too blinded by my feelings of compassion for the boy to miss how he changed. He had always been so gentle with me, so kind. I never thought he would betray me the way he did."

Kikyo blushes slightly, remembering the day Inuyasha had told her he was in love with her. He had seemed so sincere with his blushing cheeks and with how he fumbled for words. At the time, his confession made her feel happy. She had developed feelings for him as well in the time they got to know each other. She doesn't tell Gray this, though, because that memory is not for sharing. It makes her feel foolish for believing Inuyasha's words.

Gray remains silent, waiting for Kikyo to continue with her story. She is quiet for a few moments, getting lost in her memories from the past. She shakes herself from her thoughts, and smiles bitterly at her companion.

"I was unable to meet with him the day it happened. He knew I had to attend a ceremony celebrating my late mother. Inuyasha was upset he wouldn't be able to see me, but I promised him extra snacks for our meeting the day after, and that seemed to appease him. He was always easy to please when it came to food." Kikyo chuckles and shakes her head at how easy it was to change his mood just with the promise of a homemade meal.

"The ceremony was just ending when the first scream rang out. It all happened so fast after that. All I remember are the screams and the smells of smoke and blood. I was panicking because I could not find Kagome or Sota anywhere." She mumbles. "I was supposed to be fighting and protecting my people, but I failed. There were just too many demons. I took out as many as I could before I fled to find my family."

Kikyo clenches her fists in anger, eyebrows drawn together.

"I was running towards my home when I saw him." She says through her teeth, "He was standing over my father's body, blood covering his hands and clothes. I remember thinking I was hallucinating. The air was so full of smoke from the fires, and I thought the lack of oxygen was finally getting to me. But…then, he looked at me. He looked into my eyes and laughed. It was Inuyasha's laugh, but it was not the one I was accustomed to. This laugh was ugly, evil, and mean."

Kikyo clears her throat, her eyes sting with angry tears.

"I thought he was going to try to kill me," she whispers, "but all he did was laugh," Kikyo remembers how awful that laugh made her feel. She was so angry, she saw red.

"I pulled my bow out and took aim at him, but that only made him laugh harder." She seethes, "When I fired my first arrow, he fled like a coward."

Kikyo remembers the emptiness she felt when he left. How wrong it all felt. Why would he do that to her? Why would he betray her like that? Inuyasha told her he loved her, that he would never hurt her, so why would he do such a thing?

"I found Kagome hiding in the tool shed, holding Sota. They were both terrified, so I grabbed them and started to flee the village." She says.

Kikyo frowns at the next part. Even after two years, it still confuses her.

"I will never understand this, but he appeared again while we were running, yelling for me, and asking if I was okay." She rolls her eyes and scoffs, "It was a sick joke."

"I landed two arrows in him, one in his arm and one in his leg before he ran again," Kikyo says.

Inuyasha had looked so betrayed when she shot him. He seemed so hurt and confused by her actions. Kikyo clenches her hands in her lap, looking down at them to avoid Gray's eyes for a minute. Those beautiful golden eyes had looked at her with so much pain. He had looked at her as if she had been the one to betray him. He destroyed her life, and he acted as if she had done something wrong.

"That was the last time I saw him." Kikyo sighs and looks over to Gray, "After that, Kagome, Sota, and I ran. Shortly after that, we joined your settlement."

The two remain quiet for a little while. Kikyo lets Gray absorb the information she has revealed to him.

"Wow," Gray says in astonishment.

Kikyo smiles sadly at Gray and nods her head in agreement.

"I knew that your village had been destroyed by demons," Gray continues, "but I had no idea that you guys went through so much before that happened."

Kikyo leans her body against the tree behind her and looks back up to the almost wholly darkened sky.

"The New Moon has brought me sad memories ever since that day." She says quietly. "I remember the nights I shared with Inuyasha, the ones when he was human. He was too afraid to sleep on those nights, so we would stay up all night together."

Gray nods in understanding and remains quiet. They both resume looking at the dark sky. The silence does not feel as comfortable as it did before to Kikyo, so she decides to change the topic.

"How is that girl doing?" She asks.

Gray looks over to her for a moment and then shrugs.

"Still hasn't woken up." He sighs. "That annoying little sprite-thing said its normal, but Natsu keeps pacing around like an idiot."

Kikyo smiles at Gray's annoyance. He seems so calm and collected most of the time, but whenever Natsu is around, he seems to have far less patience.

"His pacing was bothering me, so I left to find you. I figured that would be safer than knocking him out, considering Erza would probably kill me for fighting with him." Gray pouts.

"I see." Kikyo smiles.

Gray looks at Kikyo thoughtfully.

"Thank you for sharing that story with me, Kikyo." He says suddenly.

Kikyo stares at Gray in shock. She isn't sure what to do or say. Why is he thanking her? All she did was tell him a sad story.

Gray chuckles at her expression and shakes his head.

"Stuff like that isn't easy to talk about, trust me, I know. So, thanks for trusting me with your past." He continues.

Kikyo smiles at Gray's words and nods. The two lapse back into a comfortable silence, neither wanting to ruin the moment with words. A cool breeze rustles the leaves on the trees above them. Kikyo closes her eyes and tilts her head back. She takes a deep breath of fresh night air and then lets it out. The sad memories from her past flow out of her, for the time being, with her exhaled breath.

Before she even realizes what is happening, she falls into a deep, dreamless sleep. It is probably the best sleep she has had in over a week.

**Hey there, **

**Sorry for how long it's been since my last update. I started school again and between that, work, and writer's block, I just couldn't get a chance to upload. I am working on chapter 6 right now, so hopefully that will be up soon. **

**I made a few changes to all of my previous chapters in order to fix as many gramatical errors as I could. I also changed Natsu's weapon from a sword to a scythe. **

**Thanks for reading! **

**~Aislyn**


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